Court Opinion

ID: 9677642
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:56:33.906676+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:57.212555
License: Public Domain

MORGAN, Justice
(concurring in part,' dissenting in part).
I concur in the disposition of the Hansen claim and I dissent to the disposition of the Thomson claim.
First, I believe that a person has a right to dispose of his property as he sees fit. In Re Rowlands’ Estate, 70 S.D. 419, 18 N.W.2d 290 (1945); see SDCL 29-5-1 et seq. The will in question was drawn by independent counsel who the court commended for his efforts. Compare In re Blake’s Estate, 81 S.D. 391, 136 N.W.2d 242 (1965) and Estate of Podgursky, 271 N.W.2d 52 (S.D.1978). The discussions, ab initio from August of 1979, indicated that the testator intended to disinherit his distant relatives. The reasons for this are unknown and apparently immaterial. In re Schaefer’s Estate, 207 Wis. 404, 241 N.W. 382 (1932), approved in In re Rowlands’ Estatc, supra. In an abundance of caution, counsel, because of the implications of the testator’s desires, made inquiry of others to ascertain testator’s competency. Presumably, if he would have proceeded immediately the will would have been valid in its entirety because the majority seems to stress testator’s declining health of the last several months, beginning in September, as rendering him susceptible to undue influence.
I cannot concur in the picking and choosing of the evidence to support the trial court’s decision on the one hand and to reject it on the other. I think that the trial court erred all the way. Hansen wanted the land as much as Thomson wanted the stock.* They both attempted to purchase what they wanted. There is no evidence that Thomson did anything more to influence testator to leave him the stock than Hansen did to influence testator to leave him the land.
If the transactions that the majority point to, all of which occurred after the testator indicated his desire to disinherit the nieces and nephews, had been conducted by testator’s barber or his green grocer, I would find them much more suspicious than I do when they were conducted by his banker whom one would naturally rely on to conduct one’s financial affairs when physically indisposed. See In re Estate of Pierce, 299 N.W.2d 816 (S.D.1980); In re Estate of Fleege, 89 S.D. 137, 230 N.W.2d 230 (1975); see also Jones v. South Dakota Children’s Home Society, 90 S.D. 126, 238 N.W.2d 677 (1976). This particular banker was so trusted by testator as to have been named executor of his will of 1974, which presumably survives this imbroglio.

 In reading the record, I get the clear impression that when the witness was talking about Thomson trying to get the bank stock he was referring to proponent’s father, because he referred to “Old” John Thomson.