Estate of Field

38 Cal.2d 151 (1951) Estate of WILLIAM AUSTIN FIELD, Deceased. EDNA F. AUBRY, as Administratrix With Will Annexed, etc., Appellant,

v.

WALTER BOTH et al., Respondents.

S. F. No. 18113. Supreme Court of California. In Bank.

Dec. 18, 1951. G. I. Hoffman and S. Joseph Theisen for Appellant.

J. Clark Benson, Marion Vecki and John E. Anderton for Respondents.

SHENK, J.

This appeal is from a judgment entered after the demurrer of respondents to a petition to revoke probate was sustained without leave to amend.

The record shows the following: William Austin Field died testate on January 6, 1949, leaving his widow, Anna Caroline Field, and a cousin surviving. At the time of his death both spouses were in their 80's and had been married for more than 50 years. On January 25, 1949, on petition of Walter Both, an instrument dated December 30, 1948, was admitted to probate as the will of the decedent. The provisions thereof bequeathed the entire estate to the widow during her life. Apparently subject to that provision residence property designated as 324, 326, 328 and 328A Hayes Street in San Francisco was devised to Walter and Martha S. Both, friends, "as a token for the many acts of kindness they have done for me and my said wife during the past years." The residue was left to the Shriners Hospital for Crippled Children in San Francisco. Some years previously the spouses had executed reciprocal wills. [153]

Prior to his death and in November, 1948, allegedly with the connivance of Walter Both, the decedent obtained a judicial declaration of his wife's incompetence and the appointment of himself as her guardian. She thereupon was placed in a sanitarium where she remained until her death on June 19, 1949.

On July 11, 1949, the will of Anna Caroline Field was admitted to probate, and Edna F. Aubry, a niece was appointed administratrix with the will annexed. On July 21, 1949, as such administratrix she filed the petition to revoke the probate of the will of the predeceased spouse, alleging as grounds of contest nonexecution of the instrument, lack of capacity to make a will due to age and mental and physical infirmities and debilities, and undue influence of Walter Both between whom and the decedent husband a confidential relationship existed.