Are you involved in a West Palm Beach will contest? Are you alleging undue influence or lack of testamentary capacity? Do you know how you plan on proving your case? What happens when the Courtexcludes crucial evidence? You may be able to appeal, check out a case out of the Third District Court of Appeal regarding an overturning a case for improperly excluding evidence.
Proving a Case: Evidence
- A will contest like any lawsuit requires you to prove your case through evidence.
- Unlike most lawsuits your key witness is dead.
- So how are you going to prove your case?
- You probably know from Law and Order that “hearsay” largely forbids a lot of out of court testimony from being said to jurors.
- Do you know why?
- An experienced Palm Beach probate litigator knows there are a lot of ways aroundhearsay rules.
- Do you know about other rules of evidence?
- Its not just hearsay that you have to worry about.
- Sometimes even physical documents can be excluded for various reasons.
- Take a look at what happened when a bank could not prove the amount owed on a note in a foreclosure action when the Court excluded key documents.
Bank of America v. Delgado
- The Third District Court of Appeal recently filed its opinion in the case of Bank of America v. Delgado (Case No. 3D13-910) on May 6, 2015.
- Originally a foreclosure action, an appeal was initiated after the Bank was unable to prove the amount due on a note.
- The Bank argued it was thwarted (stopped) from proving the amount of indebtedness because the trial court improperly excluded the loan payment history from evidence.
- Did you know that some evidence could be excluded that may be critical to your Palm Beach will contest.
- Experienced Palm Beach probate litigators know that a case is only as good as its admissible evidence.
- Just because you used evidence in negotiations does not mean that you are going to show them to a jury, always keep that in mind when considering going to trial.
Want to learn more?
Check out the entire case by clicking here.