In an effort to provide a better understanding for what testamentary capacity expert psychologists look for when forming opinions about whether the person had testamentary capacity in the execution of a will, trust, beneficiary designation, or other testamentary contractual document, I am highlighting the statutes, case law, and jury instructions specific to all 50 states. Each will be in its own blog post. Tenth up, Georgia.

GA Code § 53-4-11

(a)  Testamentary capacity exists when the testator has a decided and rational desire as to the disposition of property.

(b) An incapacity to contract may coexist with the capacity to make a will.

(c)  An insane individual generally may not make a will except during a lucid interval. A monomaniac may make a will if the will is in no way connected with the monomania. In all such cases, it must appear that the will expresses the wishes of the testator unbiased by the insanity or monomania with which the testator is afflicted.

(d) Neither advancing age nor weakness of intellect nor eccentricity of habit or thought is inconsistent with the capacity to make a will.

O’Callaghan v. Samples, 354 Ga.App.42 (Ga. Ct. App. 2020)

Testamentary capacity requires a showing that the testator was sane or of sound mind. Testamentary capacity may be possessed by weak-minded or feeble individuals. Only a total absence of mind destroys testamentary capacity (citing Meadows v. Beam, 302 Ga. 494, 498 (2), 807 S.E.2d 339 (2017)).

Such testamentary capacity exists when a testator understands the purpose of a will, knows what property he has, remembers the persons related to him by blood and affection, and has sufficient intellect to enable him to have a decided and rational desire as to the disposition of his property (citing Amerson v. Pahl, 292 Ga. 79 (1), 734 S.E.2d 399 (2012)).

Brumbelow v. Hopkins, 197 Ga. 247, 29 S.E.2d 42 (Ga. 1944)

Monomania exists whenever a person conceives something to exist which has no existence whatever, and is incapable of being permanently reasoned out of that conception.