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13 Ala. 202

Watson v. Anderson

Supreme Court of Alabama

Decided January 15, 1848

Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 1848-01-15

Writ of Error to the Orphans’ Court of St. Olair. This was a proceeding before his honor John I. Thomason, in the orphans’ court of St. Clair, to try the validity of the will of William Watson, deceased. The cause was submitted to a jury, on the issues made up between the contestants, and the executor, who propounded the will for probate. The first plea, or objection interposed by the contestants, was, that the testator was not of sound mind. 2.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1848-01-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 10 later decisions — most recently January 1986

10 state decisions

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Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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DARGAN, J.'

¶1The instructions given by the court, were entirely correct, and appropriate to the evidence, and the issues submitted to the jury. The issues, in substance, are but two. The first, as to the sanity of the testator; second, whether the will was obtained by undue influence. The court, charged, in substance, that if it was obtained by undue influence, exercised over a weak, and infirm old man, it was void. Secondly, that if the jury believed from the whole evidence, the testator was of sound mind, they should find in favor of the validity of the will, notwithstanding four, out of five of the physicians, gave it as their opinion, the testator was not of sound mind. It is true, that the opinion of medical men, on the trial of a question of sanity, is entitled to more weight, than the opinion of a witness, who is not a physician. Yet it is the duty of a jury to weigh the whole evidence, and if they are satisfied, that the testator was of a sound and disposing mind, they should so find, although the physicians who may have been examined, gave it as their opinion, that the testator was insane.

¶2Let the judgment be affirmed.

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