Court Opinion

ID: 9585642
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:02:28.566264+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:21:46.540040
License: Public Domain

Birdsong, Judge,
concurring specially.
Whenever relevant the financial condition of a party in the caveat of a will is admissible as illustrative of the reasonableness or unreasonableness of the testamentary capacity or scheme as bearing on the issue of undue influence alleged to have been exercised. This will enable the jury to better know the facts and circumstances surrounding the testator at the time he executed the will and to better determine the state of his mind, whether he had made a rational disposition of his property and whether or not undue influence was exercised over him at the time of its execution. Estes v. Perkins, 239 Ga. 636 (238 SE2d 423); Oxford v. Oxford, 136 Ga. 589 (1) (71 SE 883); however, the critical question involved in this case is whether or not the appellant is entitled to a protective order against the production of a joint tax return of the appellant and her husband.
I agree with my brother that the interests of justice do not require the production of the tax returns in question.
A tax return does not within itself show the general wealth and financial condition of the person filing the return. A tax return shows income for the year in which the return is filed. The return does not disclose, as a financial statement does, the net worth of the party filing the return. Net worth, income, real estate holdings, stocks and bonds, and other such income producing holdings can be adequately obtained through interrogatories and depositions. Furthermore, the income of the appellant’s husband should not be injected into the trial of the case.
To require the joint tax return of the appellant and husband to be produced would in my mind be annoyance, embarrassment, oppressive and an undue burden as contemplated in Code Ann. § 81A-126 (c). The trial judge *423abused his discretion in not granting the protective order.