Court Opinion

ID: 9832042
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 21:34:09.043618+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:41.428949
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
This opinion on motion for a rehearing is substituted for our former opinion on motion for rehearing, filed February 21, 1924, which latter opinion is hereby withdrawn.,
Appellee insists, in her motion for a rehearing, that this court went beyond its power in reversing and rendering the judgment in the case at bar, but that our province was to award a new trial only. This court has the power to determine from the evidence adduced on the trial of a case whether as a matter of law it is sufficient to support the judgment rendered, and, if it determines that the evidence is not as a matter of law sufficient to support the judgment rendered, then it may reverse and render the case. We do not recede from our former opinion that the evidence adduced is insufficient as a matter of law to establish either mental incapacity on the part’ of the testator, or that he was unduly influenced to execute the will in question; but, admitting only for the sake of the question raised that the issues of mental incapacity and undue influence were raised by the evidence, still the evidence is so overwhelmingly against the verdict of the jury that we could not permit it to stand. Our only alternative then would be to reverse and remand the case for the fourth time for a new trial. Appellee’s husband testified on this trial that he had gone over the county and searched diligently for testimony bearing upon the issues raised by the pleadings,, and that the testimony adduced was all that could be had. It would, therefore, be useless to reverse and remand the cause solely to permit appellee to again reiterate the same testimony heretofore adduced on the three trials already had. No doubt, on another trial, in view of the decision of the Supreme Court in the recent cases of Leahy v. Timon, 110 Tex. 73, 215 S. W. 951, and Holland v. Nimitz, 111 Tex. 419, 232 S. W. 298, 239 S. W. 185, construing article 3090, R. S. 1911, to apply in cases of this character, appellant’s counsel would object to practically the whole of appellee’s testimony as being “transactions with or statements by the testator.” This being true, appellee’s testimony relating to the acts, conduct, and statements of deceased testator, upon which she based her opinion of his lack of mental capacity to execute the will, and of the exercise of undue influence upon him, would have to be excluded on another trial. e
Appellants objected to all the testimony, and moved its exclusion, and for an instructed verdict, upon the ground that it was insufficient as a matter Of law to establish either the issue of mental incapacity or undue influence; but did not make the specific objection that any of the testimony was viola-tive of the article of the statute above referred to. ’ Whether the general objection that the testimony should be excluded because insufficient as a matter of law would sufficiently present an objection to testimony because violative of article 3690, R. S., is a matter upon which we do not deem it.necessary to pass in this case, as we have considered the whole of the evidence in arriving at our decision; but refer to the matter here for the purpose of showing that it would be a futile thing to do to again reverse the case, *665knowing that a large portion of the testimony must be excluded under the holding of the eases above cited.
It was held in the Leahy-Timon Case, supra, which is a case exactly like the one at bar, article 3690, R. S. 1911, applied to an action by heirs of a testatrix to set aside the probate of her will on the ground of undue influence by a devisee, and lack of mental capacity by the testatrix. The plaintiffs were not entitled to testify to statements by the testatrix to them, tending to show such undue influence and mental incapacity. And it was held in the case of Holland v. Nimitz, supra, that, in an action by an heir contesting the probating of a will, such heir would not be permitted to testify to an opinion as to sanity of testator, though restricting such opinion, by the form of the question and answer, to results of observations of acts, conduct, and physical condition of testator' and not basing it on conversation with or statements made by him, as being in violation of the provisions of article 3690, R. S. 1911.
These cases are directly in point in this case; and, for the reasons stated in our original opinion and in our opinion here, we overrule appellee’s motion for a rehearing.
Motion overruled.