(Download) "Bemis v. Andrews Et Al." by Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts * eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Bemis v. Andrews Et Al.
- Author : Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts
- Release Date : January 28, 1932
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 61 KB
Description
RUGG, C. J. An instrument purporting to be the last will and testament of Herbert L. Andrews, signed by him in 1922 when he was fifty-one years old, has been offered for probate. In 1920 his wife had obtained from him a decree of divorce wherein she was given the custody of their two children. When the instrument now offered for probate was signed in 1922 the children were still minors, the son apparently being about twenty and the daughter eighteen years old. The purported will gave legacies of $25 each to the children, nothing to his mother then seventy-three years old, and all the rest and residue of his estate, amounting at the time of his death in 1931 to more than $6,000, to his uncle, James E. Bemis, who was about eight or nine years older than the decedent. The children as contestants filed a motion in the Probate Court for the framing of jury issues as to the execution of the instrument in question, as to the decedent's mental capacity and as to fraud or undue influence on the part of Bemis. The motion was heard in the Probate Court solely on oral statements of expected proof by counsel for Bemis who was named as executor and by counsel for the children. The motion was denied without findings of fact or rulings of law and the case comes before us on a stenographic transcript of the statements of counsel. In this court the contestants waived so much of the motion as presents the issue as to mental capacity. The signature of the decedent to the instrument is not disputed. The contention of the contestants is that through the fraud or undue influence of Bemis the instrument gives the residue of the estate to Bemis in his own right and not to him as trustee for the children.