Opinion ID: 2062115
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Whether the district court abused its discretion in excluding plaintiffs' evidence as remote in time from just before and after execution of testator's will.

Text: Plaintiffs further contend that the district court abused its discretion in excluding certain evidence regarding events which took place before and after the time of execution of Mrs. Bayer's 1991 will. The trial court has discretion to determine relevancy pursuant to the rules of evidence and will not be reversed unless the discretion has been abused and a substantial right of a party has been affected. Vaughan v. Must, Inc., 542 N.W.2d 533, 542 (Iowa 1996). During trial, plaintiffs made three offers of proof as part of their case that Mrs. Bayer was unduly influenced in executing her will. First, plaintiffs sought to admit Deah Bruhn's testimony that defendant, Gerald Tigges, approached her following her husband's death in 1978. According to Bruhn, Tigges told her that her husband had told Tigges at an auction that he wanted Tigges to farm his land. When she asked Tigges when this conversation took place, Tigges told her that the conversation took place on a date when Bruhn knew her husband was at home and not at an auction. Additionally, plaintiffs sought to admit plaintiff Bill Hackfort's testimony that defendant Schenkelberg wanted Mrs. Bayer to buy a new Cadillac automobile in 1992, but that Mrs. Bayer was reluctant to buy the vehicle because she thought it would be a bundle of money and she did not want a new car. Plaintiffs' final offer of proof was plaintiff Jenna Hackfort's deposition testimony that Mrs. Bayer told her in 1981 that she [and the other plaintiffs] would be taken care of some day and that things would be easier for us. The district court disallowed the testimony. Defendants contend that the court properly excluded the evidence because it was too remote in time from the execution of the 1991 will and thus was irrelevant. The general rule is that alleged undue influence must operate at the very time the will is executed. See Davenport, 346 N.W.2d at 531-32. The proffered evidence ranged from ten years before to sixteen months after Mrs. Bayer's 1991 will. Clearly, this evidence was too remote from the execution of Mrs. Bayer's will and thus cannot be considered relevant. We, therefore, conclude that the district court properly exercised its discretion in excluding plaintiffs' proffered evidence. We find no abuse of trial court discretion here.