Whitacre v. Crowe

Kay Whitacre signed her will upstairs, where a one-way monitor let people downstairs see and hear her but not vice versa; her son then carried the will downstairs, where two witnesses signed it in the presence of Kay's daughter Victoria (defendant), while Kay's bedroom door remained open upstairs. Kay's other children (plaintiffs), left out of the will, contested its validity under Ohio's conscious-presence requirement for witnessing, and the trial court granted them summary judgment; Victoria appealed.

Whether a will is witnessed within the testator's conscious presence when the witnesses sign outside the testator's visible range and there is no proof the testator heard and understood what the witnesses were doing.