So, there’s something called the dead
man statute. Um, sounds kind of scary,
almost like a horror movie, but what
that is is it’s a a rule of evidence
that prevents somebody who has a stake
in the outcome of the case from getting
on the witness stand and saying, for
example, the deedent told me that uh she
wanted to leave everything to me in her
will. It’s designed to prevent fraud and
to prevent uncorroborated,
unsubstantiated, self-serving testimony.
Now, there are certain exceptions to
that. The most common one is probably if
you can produce evidence from a neutral
source that’s corroborating and
trustworthy, often times the judge will
let those witnesses testify about that.
So, we had a case that went to trial
where there was a dispute about the
deedants’s home. We represented the
daughter uh who inherited uh and the
other side was a grandson who claimed
that he was entitled to the home. And we
couldn’t just put our client on the
stand to say mom always told me she
wanted me to have the house cuz that
would be barred by the dead man statute.
So we called three witnesses uh who were
friends and neighbors of the deedent and
they were able to say yes uh the deedent
told me on many occasions she wanted her
daughter to inherit the house and in
fact had executed paperwork to make that
happen. So in that particular situation,
there was a way around the dead man
statute and the judge uh let that
testimony into evidence.