Court Opinion

ID: 9685213
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 14:26:19.150033+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:03.356490
License: Public Domain

SCHAUER, J.
I dissent. The majority opinion is essentially based on the statement that “The facts are not in dispute. ’ ’ But according to the record as I view it the facts are in dispute.
The crucial question in the case is whether the decedent executed the alleged revocatory instrument with intent to effect revocation of the will of July 22, 1942. Without such intent the later writing would be wholly ineffective. Since the decedent alone could have given direct evidence of her intent, and since her lips are stilled, resolution of the question must depend upon indirect or circumstantial evidence or upon rules of law as to- the burden of proof. Since the due execution of the will was established the burden was upon contestants to prove the animus revocandi of the testatrix. The evidence upon this subject is in substantial conflict, at least in relation to the inferences to be drawn from the circumstances shown. An inference, of course, is evidence. (Code Civ. Proc., § 1957.)
*570The evidence on the issue in question is conflicting in the following respects: An intent to revoke the will of July 22, 1942, is inferable from the very writing by decedent of the language used in the claimed revocatory document; such evidence, however, obviously is not conclusive of the intent with which it was penned. The testatrix may well have believed that the words written on the carbon copy of her will would have no effect whatsoever unless she published such later writing as her formal act. If she had ever executed a deed or contract it is not unlikely that she had been told that mere signing of the document would have no legal effect, that it would have to be delivered as well as signed to be effective; she may have thought the same rule would apply to an instrument revocatory of a formally executed will. She may have contemplated revocation but decided against it; in such contemplation she may have written the endorsement on the carbon copy of her will believing that those words would, have no effect unless she secured the formally executed will from her attorney and made the endorsement on that document. This last hypothesis is one which the trial judge, in the light of all the evidence, may well have deemed most likely to be correct. Supporting such view are the following facts: The will of July 22, 1942, was formally executed and left with decedent’s long-time attorney; the claimed revocatory instrument was never delivered or even exhibited to any person during decedent’s lifetime; decedent’s attorney had drawn the will for her; he was told nothing of an intent to revoke it; on the contrary after the date of the alleged revocatory writing he talked with decedent and according to the record stated “ ‘You know I have your will and papers here’ and she said ‘Yes, I know that’ decedent also, subsequent to the asserted revocation date, made statements to the witness Julia 0. Spencer which are definitely and substantially inconsistent with the claimed animus revocandi; likewise, the testimony of Virgil L. Catching, as to conversations with decedent both shortly before and after the claimed revocation date, shows a state of mind of the decedent inconsistent with revocation; the original will was left outstanding in the hands of decedent’s attorney; the circumstances of decedent’s estate and her relationship to the persons who seek to succeed thereto by overthrowing her will are shown to be such that the dispositive provisions of the will appear to be natural and reasonable; lastly, no motive for revocation is shown and no substitute will or altered testamentary plan is suggested to have been determined upon by the testatrix.
*571It is not contended that the revocatory instrument, if it ever was executed with intent to revoke the will, could itself be revoked and the will reinstated by any oral declarations of the testatrix; the proponents make no such suggestion. But it is most earnestly contended, and I think with full justification, that the evidence supports the conclusion that the testatrix merely contemplated and decided against revocation; that the asserted revocatory instrument never was executed with intent to make it effective; and that the original will never has been revoked. The trial court, having heard the evidence, specifically found ‘ ‘ That testatrix did not intend by writing said words of July 10, 1945 to revoke or alter said Will of July 22, 1942, in whole or in part,” and “That the Will of July 22, 1942, is the Last Will and Testament of Katherine Allen Smith, deceased, was considered as such by decedent at all times from the date of its execution until the date of her death, and at no time was revoked by decedent, in whole or in part.”
The evidence upon which the trial court made its findings of fact, including the evidence as to the declarations of the testatrix, was competent to that end. (Estate of Thompson (1941), 44 Cal.App.2d 774, 776 [112 P.2d 937].) Under such circumstances it is our duty to affirm the judgment. (Estate of Bristol (1943), 23 Cal.2d 221, 223 [143 P.2d 689]; Gate v. Certainteed Prod. Co. (1943), 23 Cal.2d 444, 448 [144 P.2d 335]; Estate of Teel (1944), 25 Cal.2d 520, 526 [154 P.2d 384]; Fackrell v. City of San Diego (1945), 26 Cal.2d 196, 207 [157 P.2d 625, 158 A.L.R. 625]; Viner v. Untrecht (1945), 26 Cal.2d 261, 267 [158 P.2d 3]; Pewitt v. Riley (1945), 27 Cal.2d 310, 313 [163 P.2d 873]; De Young v. De Young (1946) 27 Cal.2d 521, 526 [165 P.2d 457]; Millsap v. National Funding Co. (1944), 66 Cal.App.2d 658, 665 [152 P.2d 634]; Southern Calif. Freight Lines v. State Bd. of Equalization (1945), 72 Cal.App.2d 26, 29 [163 P.2d 776]; Berry v. Chaplin (1946), 74 Cal.App.2d 652, 663 [169 P.2d 442]; Medina v. Van Camp Sea Food Co. (1946), 75 Cal.App.2d 551, 556 [171 P.2d 445]; Seidenberg v. George (1946), 76 Cal.App.2d 306, 308 [172 P.2d 891]; see also eases epitomized in dissenting opinion in Isenberg v. California Emp. Stab. Com. (1947), 30 Cal.2d 34,46-48 [180 P.2d 11].)
The majority opinion leaps completely over the proposition that the finding of the trial court on conflicting evidence is binding on us, by its assertion, previously mentioned, that “The facts are not in dispute,” and its assumption from then *572on that the testatrix, by her equivocal act, intended to revoke her will. As also previously shown, the crucial fact question in the case is whether she intended by her act to revoke the will. Yet the majority, without discussing the sufficiency of the evidence, asserts that the facts are not in dispute, assumes the intent to revoke, and declares, “Once it is determined that the decedent revoked her prior will by the writing of July 10, 1945, there is no room for speculation. Therefore the evidence received of extraneous occurrences and declarations claimed to bear upon the intent to revoke cannot overcome the valid express revocation . . . Here there can be no inference other than that which is in accord with the unambiguous express revocation. ’ ’
It is apparent that this court, by the language above quoted, has made the claimed revocatory writing conclusive and exclusive evidence of the intent with which it was written, although there is no evidence whatsoever that the writer ever published the document as her act, and despite the fact that substantially all the evidence on the subject tends to show that she never intended to revoke her will. The rule made by the majority seemingly would apply equally even though it were indisputably proven that at the time decedent penned the asserted revocatory words on the copy she declared that she was merely contemplating possible future revocation of her original, executed will and that she was writing the words across the face of a carbon copy of her will merely to serve as a memorandum in the event that in the future she should decide to revoke her will, in which case she would procure the original executed will from her attorney and write the same language thereon. Under the rule laid down by the majority, the result, it seems, would also be the same, even though the decedent made the above suggested declarations of intent in writing, and notwithstanding it should also appear that her attorney advised her that the making of the memorandum on the carbon copy would be meaningless unless she later determined to, and did, endorse the revocatory language on the original will. In fact, if the majority opinion is to be followed, upon a new trial an offer to prove all of the above suggested facts would be rejected.
In my view, questions of fact on conflicting evidence should be left to resolution by trial courts. The judgment here should •be affirmed.