Applebaum v. Wechsler

This case involves a fact situation viewed by courts with suspicion: An asserted oral contract to leave one’s property to another at death. The trial chancellor was not insensitive to this breath of hostility (“You cannot,” he observed on the first day of trial, “help but view this type of case with a little bit of suspicion at the outset”). Nevertheless he decreed specific performance. The case is before us on a general appeal.

Bertha Applebaum is the plaintiff. ■ She and deceased Sidney Applebaum were married some 22 years prior to his death. Their beginnings were humble. “I come to her with…