Court Opinion

ID: 9571324
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:30:49.517611+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:27:12.075125
License: Public Domain

Hale, J.
(dissenting) — I agree with neither the court nor the concurring opinion. I would affirm. One seeking to prove a contract with a dead man or lay claim to his property should carry a heavy burden of proof as a matter of elemental justice. The court recognizes that oral promises to make a will or devise property are regarded with suspicion and require very strong evidence to support them. Alexander v. Lewes, 104 Wash. 32, 175 P. 572 (1918); Resor v. Schaefer, 193 Wash. 91, 74 P.2d 917 (1937); Arnold v. Beckman, 74 Wn.2d 836, 447 P.2d 184 (1968). And the law, both statutory and decisional for centuries has recognized the basic truth that it is easy to fabricate and manufacture colorable claims against a deceased, and that merely to assert the claim in open court under oath will put the deceased’s representative on his proof and with little corroboration may carry the day on a wholly bogus and maufactured claim. To say, as does the court, that the evidence against the dead man must be substantial is simply to reiterate the preponderance-of-evidence rule applicable in civil cases generally and to add to it the standard “high probability” without specifying the elevation to which the probability must be carried and is, I think, no improvement upon the time-tested rule long ago announced by this court, and repeatedly adhered to in a long line of *652decisions and never changed by statute. I think it a good rule that one who tries to enforce a promise to make a will or an oral contract against one whose lips are sealed in death, be required at law and in equity to prove the agreement conclusively, definitely, certainly, and beyond all legitimate controversy. Jennings v. D’Hooghe, 25 Wn.2d 702, 172 P.2d 189 (1946); Bicknell v. Guenther, 65 Wn.2d 749, 399 P.2d 598 (1965); Arnold v. Beckman, supra; Resor v. Schaefer, supra.
I would, therefore, affirm the Court of Appeals, 4 Wn. App. 254, 481 P.2d 941 (1971), and the trial court in dismissal of the case.
Rosellini, J., concurs with Hale, J.
Petition for rehearing denied July 21, 1972.