Court Opinion

ID: 9459648
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:27:10.247856+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:15.793176
License: Public Domain

FAHY, Senior Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I agree we should affirm but I reach this result by the route now explained. The court, as the trier of fact, found, as appears in its judgment of February 24, 1972.
that the paper writing in question, dated July 6, 1969, was signed by Howard J. Curtis as his Last Will and Testament in the presence of the witnesses thereon, and the Court believes that the witnesses who appeared in court and testified that they did sign the Will as witnesses at the request of and in the presence of the said Howard J. Curtis were credible witnesses, and concludes as a matter of law that the paper writing dated July 6, 1969, is the Last Will and Testament of Howard J. Curtis, and finds for the caveatee.
In its denial of appellant’s motion for a new trial, the court further explained its decision as follows:
Three witnesses at the trial testified that they saw the testator sign the will while seated at his desk in a bedroom of his home. Two of them testified that they signed the will as attesting witnesses at the request of the testator, in his presence, and in the presence of each other.
The court applied to these three witnesses the usual criteria for assessing credibility. They impressed the court as being truth telling individuals who stated fairly and frankly what they knew to be so.
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The court in comparing the signature on the will with the admittedly genuine specimens of handwriting on the aforementioned checks was and is convinced that the will was indeed signed by Howard J. Curtis.
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The court considered with all due care the testimony as to the background, training and experience of each handwriting expert and all the reasons given by him in support of his opinion as well as the other evidence in the case favoring or opposing such opinion. The court was not persuaded of the soundness of the opinion expressed by plaintiff’s two handwriting experts that the signature on the will is a forgery.
It was the plaintiff’s burden to prove her allegation that the signature on the will was forged. Brosnan v. Brosnan, 263 U.S. 345 [44 S.Ct. 117, 68 L.Ed. 332] (1923). Clearly the plaintiff failed to meet this burden.
The court thus found that defendant had established that the will was duly executed and attested, including the genuineness of the testator’s signature. Although I agree that the caveatee as proponent of the will has the burden of proof of due execution, in the context of the court’s findings I construe the statement that the plaintiff failed to sustain her burden as indicating only that the court found plaintiff’s evidence insufficient to overcome the persuasiveness of the caveatee’s evidence of due execution.1

. I have considered appellant’s contention, first raised in her motion for a new trial, and based on an alleged physical characteristic of the testator’s signature in relation to the typed attestation clause. I am not persuaded the court erred in denjdng the motion.