Chase v. Stevens

[99]

JAMES, J.

This appeal is taken by the plaintiffs from a judgment entered in favor of respondent Stewart and from an order denying their motion for a new trial. The action was brought for the purpose of having declared irrevocable a certain will made by Florence B. Chase and to have injunctive order restraining the defendants from contesting the said will and restraining them from offering for probate a will claimed to have been executed by the said Florence E. Chase subsequent to the execution of the will first above mentioned. Florence E. Chase was a sister of Horace W. Chase. Horace W. Chase lived in the city of Los Angeles at the time of his death and his sister was a resident of the state of Maine. Horace W. Chase died in June, 1911. Florence E. Chase died in April, 1912. For a number of years prior to his death Horace W. Chase had furnished to his sister the means for her support, and in a will made in February, 1911, he provided a legacy in the sum of five thousand dollars to be paid to the sister, and also made provision for further support to be given her from the trust estate which was created under his will. The plaintiffs herein constituted the members of Horace W, Chase’s immediate family and are beneficiaries under his will. In the year 1910 Horace W. Chase wrote to his sister suggesting it as his desire that she make a will leaving the property that she might die possessed of to him or his estate. The sister responded at once, forwarding the will required. Her letters, as are here exhibited by the record, were full of expressions of gratitude for the generosity and kindness of her brother, and in those letters she declared her willingness to do anything that he might ask of her. After Florence E. Chase had so made the will and it had been received by Horace W. Chase, the latter wrote to his sister declaring that now he would know that in the event of anything happening to him she would be provided for. He later made the will which we have before referred to, wherein he made further provision for the support of his sister in the event that death should overtake him. Only a few months elapsed, as will be noted by comparison of the dates, from the time that Horace W. Chase made his will until he died. After his death, it appears that the sister, disregarding the injunctions of her brother and his solemn requests to her, in which she had made full acquiescence, executed another will, devising the property that she might die possessed of to Elinor A. Chase Stevens, one of the defend