Court Opinion

ID: 9830767
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 20:27:49.972004+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:26.544708
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
It is contended that the will was not read to the testatrix in Spanish, although Dario Sanchez swore: “The will was read over to her, deceased, in Spanish. * * * He read it over in Spanish, and she said that was *592what she wanted, and asked us to sign it. * * * Judge Rodriguez, himself, read the will in Spanish, read it liDe by line and sentence by sentence.” That evidence was credited by the trial judge, and this court has no authority to set it aside or ignore it. If the will was read to her and explained, as the testimony tends to show, the testatrix knew that Margarita Garcia, her daughter, was excepted from the bequest, for the reason, as recited in the will, because she “has already received her share of my estate.” That statement in the will was not contradicted, and Margarita Garcia made no effort to contest the will. Appellants contend in their argument on the motion for rehearing that “the old woman was deceived by that statement, because she did not know that Margarita Garcia, one of her children, was left out of the will, and not named in it, having named all the other children,” and yet the will shows that she was specially mentioned therein and a reason given for not bequeathing her a portion of the property, and, instead of not being mentioned in the will, she and her two brothers were the only ones named in the will.
The witnesses Jose M. Rodriguez and Dario Sanchez were not interested in the disposition of the property of the testatrix, were honored citizens of Webb county, and cannot he disqualified as witnesses because they were friendly, or even related to the proponents of the will. The law does not require that the attesting witnesses to a will should be unfriendly to those to whom the property is bequeathed.
It is incumbent on this court to consider and give full weight to that part of the testimony which tends to support the judgment of the trial judge, and such judgment cannot be set aside merely because the evidence upon which it is based was contradicted by the testimony of the adverse party. The trial judge knew the witnesses, heard their testimony, weighed it, and gave that of appellees weight and effect, and this court cannot substitute its opinion as to the credibility of the witnesses and the weight to be given their testimony for that of the trial judge. What this court might have held, unhampered by the judgment of the trial court, is a matter of no consequence, as there is testimony that sustains the judgment and the appellate court is bound by it.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.