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84 Miss. 157

Buffington v. Thomas

Mississippi Supreme Court

Decided March 15, 1904

Mississippi Supreme Court · decided 1904-03-15

From the chancery court of Tazoo county. Hon. Robert B. Mayes, Chancellor. Buffington, the appellant, contested the will of his wife, Mamie; Mrs. Thomas, the appellee, was the contestee. From a decree probating and establishing the will the contestant appealed to the supreme court. The will was in-form a letter in the following words: “'San Antonio, Tex., Dec. 25, 1898. “Mr. Edward Drenning. “Dear Friend — This leaves me in bed with high fever.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1904-03-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 11 later decisions — most recently December 1965

11 state decisions

401904191019201930194019501960decided

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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Calhoon, J.,

¶1delivered the opinion of the court.

¶2The instrument was properly probated as a will- The acute attack of fever was the inducement to the woman to indicate-her last wishes, and her dominant idea was to express them, and to say what she wanted “in case I die,” and she gives her reason for the wish. The request to “answer at once” perhaps indicates only the desire to know whether the letter reached its destination. There is no presumption that it was designed to alter its nature. And so of the words “this is private.” Erom the purport of the whole paper, manifest reasons would militate against publication during the life of the writer. Anderson v. Pryor, 10 Smed. & M., 620; Redhead v. Redhead (Miss.), 35 South., 761; “All opinions,” Eaton v. Brown, 193 U. S., 411.

¶3Affirmed.

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