Estate of Goetz

Estate of Goetz (1967) 253 Cal.App.2d 107considered whether the parties challenging the will had presented sufficient evidence to invoke the common law presumption of undue influence, not with whether substantial evidence supported a trial court judgment based on all the evidence there was undue influence exerted. In Goetz the son transported his mother to the lawyer who prepared a will for her (the mother had no other will), was present when terms of the will were discussed, and he did not take the mother to a psychiatrist when a doctor later refused to witness the will unless a psychiatrist passed on her competency. The mother's will left her separate property to her son, who was from a prior marriage, and none of it to her current husband (from whom she was somewhat estranged) and their adult daughter. But the evidence demonstrated the husband was financially well off and the couple had substantial assets held as joint tenants that the husband would acquire upon the wife's death. The husband and his wife's son were on poor terms, and it was unlikely the husband would leave anything to him. The adult daughter was financially well off, resided out of the country, and had not visited the mother for many years (the daughter did not contest her mother's will). (Id. at p. 111.)