Miller v. NBD Bank, N.A.
Court of Appeals of Indiana
701 N.E.2d 282 (1998)
Miller entered into a lease-purchase agreement with Anthony Mongan, later modified by a written amendment. After Mongan's death, Miller filed a claim against Mongan's estate (with NBD Bank serving as executor) seeking to enforce the agreement and its modification. The estate denied the claim, contending the signature on the modification was not genuinely Mongan's, and moved for summary judgment, relying on Indiana's Dead Man's Statute, which bars a person with an interest adverse to an estate from testifying about transactions or conversations with the decedent, to argue that Miller himself could not testify to authenticate the signature.
Whether, in a legal proceeding in which a decedent's estate is a party with an interest in the outcome and affairs from the decedent's lifetime are at issue, a necessary party whose interest is adverse to the estate may serve as a witness against the estate with respect to such issue.