## Facts

- Miss Hattie Hewlett executed holographic wills dated April 17, 1936 and December 28, 1936; the contest primarily concerned the December 28 will.
- At the time of the December 28 will, she lived at the Brown Rest Home in Austin, Texas, and later died in 1960 with an estate of about $240,000.
- The December 28 holographic will created a trust benefiting certain relatives with the remainder for University of Texas scholarships.
- On January 18, 1937, a county court adjudged Hewlett non compos mentis and appointed a guardian.
- In the will contest, the State offered psychiatrist Dr. Sam Hoerster, who diagnosed Hewlett with manic-depressive illness.
- The State asked Hoerster, via hypothetical, whether Hewlett had the mental ability associated with testamentary capacity when she wrote the will and whether she acted during a lucid interval.
- Outside the jury’s presence, Hoerster opined that Hewlett had testamentary capacity and wrote the will during a lucid interval.
- The trial court excluded those opinions as addressing the “ultimate issue,” while allowing contestants’ lay witnesses to opine that Hewlett was of unsound mind.

## Issues

1. Whether a qualified mental-health expert may opine, in response to a proper hypothetical, that a testator had testamentary capacity and acted during a lucid interval, notwithstanding that the opinion bears on the ultimate fact issue.
2. Whether exclusion of the expert’s capacity and lucid-interval opinions was harmful error requiring reversal.
3. Whether a post-execution adjudication of incompetency is admissible to prove lack of testamentary capacity at the time the will was executed.
4. Whether a facially rational, coherent holographic will establishes a lucid interval and testamentary capacity as a matter of law.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Texas held the trial court erred by excluding Dr. Hoerster’s opinion answers to the hypothetical capacity question and the lucid-interval question.
- The Court held the error was harmful because the excluded opinions were central to the State’s proof on the controlling issue and directly countered the contestants’ opinion evidence.
- The Court held a later adjudication that the testator was non compos mentis is not admissible to prove incapacity at the earlier execution date.
- The Court held a rational and sensible holographic will is evidence of a lucid interval but is not conclusive as a matter of law.
- The Court reversed the judgments below and remanded for a new trial.

## Legal Principles

- Qualified experts may give opinion testimony on mental condition and testamentary capacity in response to a properly framed hypothetical tracking the elements of capacity; such testimony is admissible even if it bears on the ultimate fact issue.
- Excluding key expert opinions on the central disputed fact in a will contest can constitute reversible error when it likely affected the jury’s verdict.
- A post-execution incompetency adjudication does not prove the testator’s capacity or incapacity at the time of executing the will and is not admissible for that purpose.
- A coherent, rational holographic will supports an inference of capacity or lucid interval but does not compel that finding as a matter of law; the factfinder must weigh all evidence.

## Conclusion

The court ordered a new trial because the jury was improperly denied the State’s principal expert opinion evidence on testamentary capacity and lucid interval, reaffirming that later incompetency adjudications do not prove prior incapacity and that a rational holographic will is probative but not conclusive on capacity.


Carr v. Radkey, 393 S.W.2d 806 (Tex. 1965)