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in order to get the property devised to him by the will. While we do not agree to the conclusion reached, the case only involved the operation of a private grant, and therein differs widely from a case in which the statutory law of descent is in question. In the former case, it was only necessary to set aside an instrument between private parties on the ground of fraud, but in the latter it would be necessary to set aside the positive law of the state.

The case of New York Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. Armstrong, 117 U. S. 591, cited for the appellant, merely decided that proof that the assignee of a policy of life insurance caused the death of the assured by felonious means was sufficient to defeat a recovery on the policy. Mr. Justice Field, delivering the opinion, said: "It would be a reproach to the jurisprudence of the country if one could recover insurance money payable on the death of a party whose life he had feloniously taken. As well might he recover insurance money upon a building that he has willfully fired," thus showing that the decision was based entirely upon the ground of fraud upon a contract right.

The case of Cleaver v. Mutual etc. Life Assn., 1 Q. B. 147, also cited for appellant, is of an entirely similar character. It was an attempt to enforce a trust in favor of one who had brought about the conditions essential to its fulfillment by killing the person whose death made it operative. Lord Justice Fry said in the opinion: "If no action can arise from fraud, it seems impossible to suppose it can arise from felony or misdemeanor."

In the argument for appellant, no case is cited which presents the very question which arises on this record. But there are at least the three cases above cited which do involve the same question as this, and they are all decided against the contention of the appellant. These authorities appear to us to be far more in consonance with sound principle than those which are seemingly, though not really, of an opposite tendency, and they 212 certainly harmonize with the views we entertain. The assignments of error are not sustained.

The decree of the court below is affirmed, and the appeal is dismissed, at the cost of the appellant.

WILLIAMS, J., dissenting. I concur in the disposition of so much of the fund as is derived from the estate of Mrs. Carpenter, who was convicted only of being an accessory after the fact to the murder of her husband. I dissent from the disposition of so much of it as is derived from the alleged estate of the son, who was convicted of murder, and whose crime was committed for the

AM. ST. REP., VOL L-49

purpose of securing the property of his father. The son could not, by his own felony, acquire the property of his father, and be protected by the law in the possession of the fruits of his crime.

DESCENT-DECEDENT MURDERED BY HEIR.-A person cannot take by inheritance the estate of a person whom he murders for the purpose of removing the life that stands between him and such estate: Shellenberger v. Ransom, 31 Neb. 61; 28 Am. St. Rep. 500, and note.

THOMAS V. Carter.

[170 PENNSYLVANIA STATE, 272]

INSANE DELUSIONS.-A man may be of sound mind in regard to his dealings in general while he is under an insane delusion, and whenever it appears that his will was the direct offspring of his partial insanity or monomania, which was the cause of the disposition made by him of his property, and that without it such disposition would not have been made, it should be disregarded.

IF A MONOMANICAL DELUSION, HAVING NO FOUNDATION IN FACT, is entertained by a testator toward his wife, daughter, or other heir, and is shown to have been the ope ative motive which caused the disinheriting of him or her by his wil, it must be disre garded, as being the product of an insane delusion.

Contest of the will of Charles Carter, on the ground that he, when making it, was not of sound, disposing mind, memory, and understanding. By his will he disinherited two of his daughters. At the trial, a hypothetical question was put to a witness, who was an expert in nervous diseases, from which question the other evidence in the case is sufficiently apparent. This question was as follows:

"Q. You will understand that these facts which I put to you are on the assumption of their existence, which I will ask you to answer. I put to you the case of a man, whom we will call Dr. Smith. I state to you certain things concerning him, which I will ask you to assume as true, and, upon this assumption of their truth, I will hereafter ask your expert opinion concerning his testamentary capacity.

"The facts I ask you to assume to be true, upon which I will ask your opinion, are these: Dr. Smith died in his seventy-first year, in 1888. He was educated as a physician. After 1845 he never practiced as a physician. About the year 1874, he formed the habit of taking, habitually, various medicines, such as opium, morphine, cannabis indica, acetate of lead, calomel. He continued in this habit until his death, taking, as the years went on, more frequent, and certainly in the last four years of his life daily, and often several times per day, doses of one or the other

of these doses before and after each meal and at night being habitually taken. From time to time, he was warned by physicians whom he consulted, these physicians being men of high standing in their profession, that this habit of drug-taking was a dangerous one, and would injure him. He disregarded their warnings, however, and continued the habit. In 1885, and thereafter, he, at times, had unconscious spells. Late in 1883, and thereafter, in the belief that he was too weak and infirm to go out as he formerly had done, though really able to do so, he practically shut himself up in his own room, only going down stairs occasionally until 1885, and thereafter scarcely, excepting when he was taken away from the city in the summer. In 1883, and subsequently for four years later, the different physicians whom he consulted repeatedly urged him to cease from the medication in which he was indulging, and to take fresh air and exercise. He refused to follow their advice, and from 1883 until his death he confined himself more and more closely to his bed, and required his food to be cut up and fed to him after the beginning of 1885, though he had the full use of his hands. Occasionally, he suffered from liver trouble, from diarrhoea, and toward the last from gall stones of a painful character. He persisted in confining himself to the room, though repeatedly urged by the physicians to go out, as it would do him good. Dr. Smith was educated and intelligent. He had always been very positive in his opinions, and forcible in asserting them. He was always desirous of having his own way, and of ruling his family. He was always somewhat arbitrary. In the winter of 1884-85 his character changed in the following particulars, and the change continued until death in 1886. He became more irritable, exceedingly suspicious, and very violent when opposed in opinion or action. He would speak, during 1885, of his poverty and inability to meet his bills, though in very easy financial circumstances, having an income of about ten thousand dollars per annum, and his wife having about the same income, which was contributed to family support, the income being derived from well-invested property, real and personal estate of Dr. Smith, worth nearly five hundred thousand dollars. The change with regard to his suspiciousness reached such a stage that, in the winter of 1884, and subsequently, until his death, he not only accused persons of dishonesty without the slightest foundation, of stealing money, but he also, without the shadow of cause, accused, to members of his family, in 1885, his confidential legal adviser, upon whom he relied, and continued to rely, for business advice, and whom he named, late in 1886, an executor and trustee of

his alleged will, of cheating and robbing him. In 1884 and 1885, he accused his children of not loving him, though they were most affectionate and devoted to him. He then said that one of his sons, who was devoted to him, was wishing that he was dead. In 1885, without truth, he said of his devoted wife, to a son and to a daughter, though for years he had been relying upon her for attention, that he must be careful what medicine he took from her, as he did not know but what she might make away with him.

"In March, 1885, a gentleman who, with his knowledge and without any dissent, had been visiting at his house, and with whom, for months previously, he had been on very friendly terms, became engaged in marriage to his daughter. This gentleman was a man of good social position, of excellent character, and was superintendent of a manufacturing corporation, which paid him a salary of three thousand dollars per annum. Immediately upon the announcement of the engagement, Dr. Smith became excessively enraged, threw his arms about, and pounded on the floor with his cane, screamed, and cried. From this time forward, until 1887, he recurred frequently, with different persons, to the subject of the proposed marriage. When he did so, he would be wild, excited, distracted, incoherent, despairing, and frenzied in his manner and talk. He would frequently, during such times, burst into tears, crying and sobbing like a child. He was repeatedly, during this period, questioned, when this topic was discussed, as to his reasons for objecting to the match. He gave no better reasons than these: he said he would never permit his daughter to marry a man who lived on a salary, even though it was twenty thousand dollars a year; at other times, he said that the man had light hair; that he looked like boiled veal; that he would allow no man to marry his daughter who had permitted a horse to run off; that he was a knave (there being no foundation for this last charge); that he (Dr. Smith) was battling for the family institution; that his daughter was bad, and always had been bad (though she had always been of the purest character, and, prior to this engagement, he had been devoted to her). On one occasion, in the spring of 1885, when pressed for his reasons by a son in law, he said, with a wild look in his eye, 'I will tell you. I have a reason. . . . . I will allow no daughter of mine to marry for such a reason. This is my real reason.' Within six months this was repeated in substance by Dr. Smith to his son. His outbursts concerning this matter were such that, though his wife was quiet and devoted in her manner to him, and avoided as much talk as

possible upon the subject, and took no active part in the engagement, she was repeatedly, in order, as she properly believed, to save him from injury because of such outbursis, obliged, as early as 5 o'clock in the morning, to leave the room in which they were sleeping, and to go downstairs. He often asserted, after the announcement of the engagement, that all his family were in a conspiracy against him. He said, without being able to give any better reasons than I have assigned for his objection to the marriage, that he would disinherit every child who in any way would countenance the marriage, or, if it took place, would thereafter hold any intercourse with his daughter. In the latter part of 1884, a deterioration in the business ability of Dr. Smith was perceived, which continued, increasingly, until his decease, manifesting itself, amongst other ways, in an increasing inability to balance his books and cause proper entries to be made therein.

"Assuming that all these facts which I have stated to you are true concerning the hypothetical Dr. Smith, I ask you whether, in any part of December, 1886, he, in your opinion, possessed a sound mind?"

"A. In my opinion he was not."

Objections were made to this and other questions when asked, and the action of the trial court in allowing them to be answered was duly excepted to. Verdict and judgment were against the validity of the will.

Samuel Dickson and Mayer Sulzberger, for the appellant.

John G. Johnson, for the appellees.

281 PER CURIAM. In this issue, devisavit vel non, framed for the purpose of trying and determining the three questions of fact recited therein, John M. Thomas, sole acting executor of the writing 282 purporting to be the last will and testament of Charles Carter, deceased, is plaintiff, and Williams Carter and others, including all the children and heirs at law of said decedent, are defendants.

The proper solution of these questions depended, of course, upon a variety of minor facts and circumstances, calculated to shed light on one or more of said main questions, and thus enable the jury to reach a correct conclusion as to each of them. This necessitated the introduction of a mass of testimony, which was submitted to and passed upon by the jury. The cause appears to have been carefully and ably tried in the court below. We have given to the questions presented by the record that consideration which their importance and the interests involved appear to re

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