Court Opinion

ID: 9576756
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:28:09.289423+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:15:24.025228
License: Public Domain

WOOD (Fred B.), J.
I am unable to concur.
It appears to me that the finding of testacy is supported by substantial evidence, including the inferences which reasonably may be drawn from that evidence.
The instrument in question was entirely written, dated, and subscribed by the hand of the decedent. It was found among her papers. Its wording is indicative of a testamentary intent. The disposition it makes comports with the disposition she intended as narrated in her letter of March 11th to Mr. Scott. What more do we need ?
Some confusion has arisen, stemming in part, it would seem, from the manner in which decedent indicated the date of this instrument.* Apparently she dated it March “13th” and then drew a diagonal line through the “3” with the intention of converting it into a “1” or an “8.” The trial judge says “8.” I am not prepared to differ with him. The diagonal stroke through the “3” does not make an artistically finished and polished “8,” yet it looks like a fair attempt, *862made by an elderly, feeble, nearly blind person. Also, this view of the altered date line receives support from other circumstances in the case.
Mr. Scott, to whom she wrote under date of March 11th, says he received her letter March 14th and that day phoned her that the bank could not perform the legal service of drafting a will or codicil for her; that she should get a lawyer • if she desired, he would turn her letter over to a lawyer; she so desired; accordingly, he did turn it over to a lawyer, Mr. Falconer, who had in 1947 advised her concerning the writing of an olographic codicil; and Mr. Falconer phoned her. Mr. Falconer has no independent recollection of having phoned but Mr. Scott has a definite recollection in that regard. Also, the questioned document contains some internal evidence of the reception of legal advice by the author of it. Her legal adviser, with her letter of March 11th in front of him, could readily have used it as a convenient vehicle when instructing her, transposing the words "Conditions have changed”; omitting the words “making it desirable that I revoke,” substituting therefor the words “I wish to revoke”; and omitting the sentences “I am 89 years old, Helpless and growing blind. Please help me either to add a new codicil or to make a new will.”
The addendum which she then or later wrote at the bottom of the same sheet of paper certainly was no revocation of the will (if it was a will) written on the upper portion. Nor did the addendum necessarily convert that will (if it was a will) into a mere request to draft for her a new will or a codicil to an old will. The words “please do what is necessary under the circumstances, whether by codicile or a new will,” reasonably may be interpreted in their context, as a request to Mr. Scott to do the indicated drafting if he felt the will she had just written was not legally sufficient in every respect. Concerning the significance of the repetitious statement “no longer no longer,” who in writing a brief or opinion has not committed similar inadvertent errors, errors which upon occasion have persisted through several editings, to be discovered only upon reading page proof, sometimes not until after the filing of the document ?
Also, the trial judge well may have attached some significance to the fact that Mr. Scott did not hear from the decedent after their conversation on the 14th of March. If she felt secure in having written a will, she would not necessarily have an urge to communicate further. The question *863has been asked: Why did she not mail this letter which contained this purported will í Need we speculate ? She readily could change her mind about seeking further advice.
As it happened, her son and intended sole beneficiary died on the following 14th of June. She died two days later. Her grandson Robert, with whom she was on friendly terms, testified that following his father’s death his grandmother told him, as he sat there at her bedside, she was going to make a new will and leave everything to him, save for bequests to his older brother Ralph, who was absent in Korea. That statement was quite consistent with her having made a will since March 11th, a will which left everything to her son, now deceased.
The evidence which conflicts with this evidence and these inferences was either rejected or given little weight by the trial judge, who saw and heard the witnesses. Decedent’s expressed reluctance to make a will without an attorney’s advice is of no significance if Mr. Falconer phoned and advised her. The trial judge had good ground for concluding that he did. The habit of writing a first draft of a letter, then revising it and mailing the revision, keeping the first draft as a copy, need not prevail over significant evidence of what the deceased probably did upon this particular occasion. We are not always and upon all occasions mere creatures of habit, even at 89.
Finally, my examination of the record convinces me that the trial judge decided all the issues presented to him in this proceeding.
I would affirm the order,
A petition for a rehearing was denied July 31, 1953. Wood (Fred B.), J., was of the opinion that the petition should be granted.
Respondents’ petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied August 27, .1953. Carter, J., was of the opinion " that the petition should be granted.

The date which a testator writes into an olographic will need not be the very day upon which he penned the will. That question becomes significant, however, when other circumstances make it important to ascertain when, or about when, he did put pen to paper.