In Re Estate of Wasserman

HENSHAW, J.

This is a contest over the admission to probate of the will of Victor H. Wasserman, deceased. At the time of his death he was forty-five years of age. He had never married and left surviving him his mother, two brothers, and one sister. He had been employed as a railway freight clerk in the offices of the Southern Pacific Company, but some time prior to his death was obliged to cease his employment on account of ill health. He invested his savings in a six-acre tract of land in Santa Clara County and devoted his time to planting this land to orchard trees: Before his death he was despondent over his lack of money. In March,

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1914, he committed suicide by hanging. His body was found in a barren spot near the reservoir on Twin Peaks in the city and county of San Francisco. While his death was caused by the strangulation of hanging, he had also stabbed himself. In his hat, found alongside his body, was a holographic will in language as follows:

“San Francisco, Cal.

“Mar. 9, ’14.

“Being of sound mind, I will my (6 1-5) six and one-fifth acres in Santa Clara County to Horace C. Jones of Berkeley.

“Victob H. Wassekman.”

Its date was the day preceding the testator’s self-destruction. The beneficiary under his will and the proponent thereof, Horace C. Jones, was a friend of the deceased of several years’ standing and had been engaged with him in the same general employment in the Southern Pacific Company, had interested himself in the deceased’s affairs and made many week-end visits to the deceased’s property in Santa Clara County. The deceased was not an infrequent guest at the home and at the table of the proponent.

The contest of this will instituted by the mother of the deceased was based upon the mental incapacity of the deceased to execute a will by reason of his insanity. The issue was tried before a jury which returned its verdict against the validity of the will upon the ground indicated. From the decree which followed and from the order denying his motion for a new trial, Horace C. Jones, the proponent, appeals.