Court Opinion

ID: 9688642
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 17:59:21.489985+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:40.898584
License: Public Domain

PER CuRIAM
(on motion for rehearing). We do not find it necessary to review at length the points raised by the motion for a rehearing or to do other than to say that respondents’ contention that the issue of the mental competency of the testator was not before this court but only the issue of undue influence is not well founded.
One of the four essential elements which must be established in order to upset a propounded will on the ground of undue influence is susceptibility of the testator to influence by the person having the opportunity to exercise undue influence. Will of Ehlke, 244 Wis. 115, 121, 11 N. W. (2d) 497, and other cases digested in 16 Callaghan’s Wis. Dig., under Undue Influence, p. 804, sec. 1. It is pertinently stated in 57 Am. Jur., Wills, p. 261, sec. 356: “A showing of impaired mental powers or a clouding of the intelligence of the testator makes it easier to substantiate a charge of undue influence.” Therefore, the mental condition of the testator at the time he executed the propounded instrument is material to the issue of undue influence.
Our attention is called to a portion of the opinion at which we said that $500 was deposited in 1936 and followed with *520ba parenthetical statement, page 519, “(This was the year that the wife inherited a share in the farm.)” The $500 was deposited in 1936. The error is in connecting that deposit with the death of the father-in-law, which occurred in 1926.
Rehearing denied with $25 costs.