Court Opinion

ID: 9596534
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:51:03.905461+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:24:25.127697
License: Public Domain

CARTER, J., Dissenting.
I dissent.
I am of the opinion that the trial court was not justified in granting a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict in this case because there was ample evidence from which the jury could reach the conclusion that the testator was mentally incompetent at'the time of the execution of his will.
Bearing in mind that in eases of this kind all evidence in favor of the contestant must be taken as true, and if contradictory evidence has been received, it must be disregarded, we cannot ignore the testimony of the family physician who attended the testator from 1929 until during the year of 1935, that certain cells of Mr. Arnold’s brain had been destroyed by alcoholism, and that in his opinion, Mr. Arnold was of unsound mind on May 6, 1936. Mr. Arnold’s case was also characterized by said physician as progressive or growing deterioration of the mind and degeneration or destruction of the brain cells due to chronic alcoholism.
*591When a testator is afflicted with a progressive mental disease, eases in this state have held that “evidence of the testator’s mental status, together with his appearance, conduct, acts, habits and conversation, both before and after the execution of the will, are admissible so long as they have a reasonable tendency to indicate his mental condition at the time of the execution of the will.” (68 C. J. 463, sec. 71; Estate of Hartley, 137 Cal. App. 630, 633 [31 Pac. (2d) 240] ; Estate of Alexander, 111 Cal. App. 1, 7 [295 Pac. 53] ; Estate of Ivey, 94 Cal. App. 576, 587 [271 Pac. 559] ; Estate of Sexton, 199 Cal. 759 [251 Pac. 778]; Estate of Lenci, 106 Cal. App. 171, 177 [288 Pac. 841]; Estate of Jones, 166 Cal. 108, 111 [135 Pac. 288]; Estate of Albertson, 31 Cal. App. (2d) 211, 217 [87 Pac. (2d) 883]; Estate of Miller, 16 Cal. App. (2d) 154, 165 [60 Pac. (2d) 498].)
A summary of the evidence regarding the effect of chronic alcoholism upon the mentality of Mr. Arnold and of the progressive nature of his mental deterioration, gleaned largely from the testimony of his family physician and one other attending physician is, briefly, as follows:
The testator was addicted to the constant use of alcoholics. He was “incompetent as a thorough chronic alcoholic”. Arnold was “always intoxicated” and “unaccountable”; he suffered numerous attacks of delirium tremens. He had to be treated for psychosis—alcoholic degeneration; at times he saw squirrels sitting on his bed posts, snakes squirming on the floor and other animals he could not describe. Between 1929 and 1935, he became steadily worse. During the latter part of 1933, he lost all interest in his wife, home, garden and in the things most normal people are interested in. He neglected his clothes, did not wash his face and did not button his coat. He said he was tired of living, and had to be deprived of a bottle of strychnine tablets which he kept secreted in his bed. On occasions he drank four or five quarts of whiskey or brandy in three days in his home. Those suffering from chronic alcoholism suffer a degeneration of the brain due to a frequent swelling of the membranes around the brain. Arnold’s was a progressive chronic alcoholism destructive of the brain cells. The nerves extending out from the brain controlling the arms and legs were evidently damaged, because Arnold could not walk, but would stagger. He had a positive Romberg condition in that he could not balance. He *592had cirrhosis of the liver, arthritis, lumbago and arterial sclerosis. Repeated occurrences of delirium tremens and of a condition of intoxication over a period of years deteriorate all brain structures. In Mr. Arnold’s ease, according to the rules of the law of medicine, that portion of the brain where thinking is done was damaged or destroyed. Due to his alcoholic debauches, the family physician was of the opinion that the cells of Arnold’s brain had shrunk and impaired his, power of thought. The tortuous, twisted blood vessels revealed by an examination of his eyes, indicated a brain disturbance or degeneration from alcoholism. He suffered from an emotional disturbance, feared that enemies were talking about him. He was nervous and shaky and there was a tremor in his hands. He had no memory at all. Numerous intimate acquaintances testified that the testator was almost continuously intoxicated and irrational.
In spite of the positive and impressive character of the evidence with regard to the testator’s mental incompetency, the majority opinion states that such evidence failed to show that Arnold’s excessive use of intoxicating liquor over a long period of time had destroyed “utter capacity to know and understand those things which the law prescribed as essential to the making of a will. •
As authority for this view said opinion relies upon the case of Estate of Fisher, 202 Cal. 205, 209 [259 Pac. 755], and particularly upon the following excerpt therefrom:
“Where the point is made that a decedent was of unsound mind at the time he executed his will because of long use of alcoholic liquors, evidence of such use both before and after the execution of the will and of the effect thereof upon his mind is admissible in so far as it tends to reveal his mental condition at the time of the execution of the will. The intemperate use of alcoholic beverages, if continued for a sufficient length of time, may destroy testamentary capacity. Nevertheless, in the absence of proof that the intemperate use has actually destroyed testamentary capacity, no presumption will be indulged, however long continued the habit is shown to have been, that it has thus been destroyed.”
It seems to me that the proper view to be taken of the instant ease is not that the evidence presented herein to show decedent’s lack of testamentary capacity raised a presumption that said capacity had been destroyed, but that there was *593evidence that the continued and excessive use of liquor had caused a disease and destruction of decedent’s brain tissue, with a resultant loss of memory and other faculties, and that, therefore, testimony as to the mental condition, acts, and conversations of the testator, both before and after the execution of his will was properly submitted to the jury to determine his competency on the date of its execution, and, further, that the determination of this issue was within the province of the jury.
Objections to the positive testimony that the testator was of unsound mind when the will was executed, such as those that the family physician had not seen the testator at all times or had not attended him continuously up to the time of his death, go to the weight of the testimony and are likewise matters to be determined by the trial jury and not by this court. The same rule applies to the argument that the will itself established the fact that there was testamentary capacity. It may be some evidence of the fact, but certainly is not conclusive to the extent that all other evidence to the contrary must be disregarded.
In my opinion therefore, the judgment of the trial court should be reversed.