An intermediate Ohio appellate court affirmed the lower court’s denial of probate to a will where the witnesses viewed the testator signing “on a monitor” and then attested to the signature in a room on a different floor of the testator’s home on the grounds that the witnesses were not in the conscious presence of the testator as required by the then applicable statute. After a thorough discussion of the meaning of “conscious presence,” the court concluded that because the monitor was “one way,” the testator could neither see nor hear the witnesses sign. Whitacre v. Crowe, No. 11CA0019–M, 2012 WL 2499953 (Ohio Ct. App. June 29, 2012).
Special thanks to William LaPiana (Rita and Joseph Solomon Professor of Wills, Trusts, and Estates, New York Law School) for bringing this case to my attention.
