## Facts

- J. B. Watts executed a will leaving his entire estate to Nazarine Parker and naming Dees (a local banker) as executor; Watts expressed an intent to exclude his next of kin.
- Watts later executed a deed conveying his real property to Parker for nominal consideration ($1), while reserving the use and enjoyment of the property for life.
- After Watts died, Dees offered the will for probate.
- Watts’s heirs and next of kin contested the will and filed an equity action to cancel the deed, alleging undue influence and mental incapacity.
- It was undisputed that Parker was not present for, and did not participate in, the preparation or execution of either instrument.
- The trial court consolidated the will contest and the deed-cancellation action for jury trial.
- Over objection, the trial court charged the jury that if the deed consideration was “so extremely inadequate” as to satisfy the jury that there must have been “imposition, or undue influence…amounted to oppression,” the jury should find for the contestants.
- The jury returned verdicts invalidating both the will and the deed; judgment was entered for the contestants, and the proponents appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether a jury may infer undue influence and “oppression” from “extremely inadequate” consideration where the challenged conveyance is a deed of gift rather than a bargain-and-sale transaction.
2. Whether the evidence was sufficient to support findings of undue influence or mental incapacity invalidating the will and the deed.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Alabama reversed and remanded.
- The jury instruction linking inadequate consideration to a required finding for contestants was erroneous because the conveyance was a deed of gift, not a vendor–purchaser transaction.
- The evidence did not support undue influence or incapacity; the proponents were entitled to an affirmative charge on undue influence, and the verdicts were against the great weight of the evidence.

## Legal Principles

- Inadequacy of consideration as circumstantial evidence of undue influence is a doctrine directed to bargain-and-sale transactions; it does not apply to a pure gift deed where nominal consideration is incidental to the transfer.
- A morally illicit relationship between donor/testator and beneficiary, standing alone, does not establish undue influence; the influence must rise to domination of the donor’s/testator’s volition.
- Absent evidence that the beneficiary participated in procuring, drafting, or executing the will or deed, inferences of undue influence are weakened and may fail as a matter of proof.
- Where the record lacks substantial evidence that undue influence dominated the grantor’s/testator’s will, the proponent may be entitled to a directed verdict on that issue.

## Conclusion

The court set aside the jury’s invalidation of both instruments because the trial court improperly invited the jury to treat nominal consideration in a gift deed as proof of undue influence, and because the evidence—especially the beneficiary’s noninvolvement in execution and proof of the decedent’s firm intent—did not support findings of incapacity or undue influence.


Dees v. Metts, 17 So. 2d 137 (Ala. 1944)