Vaicunas v. Gaylord

Syllabus

The plaintiffs, V and K, brought an action claiming, inter alia, that the defendants exerted undue influence on H to amend her trust, and a claim of adverse possession by V, against the defendants, M's heirs and R. H and her husband, F, owned four lots of certain real property, numbered 34 through 37. Their residence was located on lots 34 and 35. V's property abutted lot 37, which he used to store vehicles and to garden. V and K were F's and H's nephews and R was H's niece. After F died in 1998, H executed a trust whereby lots 34 through 36 were to be given to K and lot 37 was to be given to V. In 2003, H met M, and became close friends with M and his family. In 2010, H amended the trust and removed the provisions devising her real property to the plain- tiffs and, instead, provided that the corpus of the trust, including lots 34 through 37, were to be distributed in equal shares to R and M. Following H's death, the plaintiffs became aware of the amended trust, and commenced the present action. V claimed that he gained title to lot 37 through adverse possession. The jury found in favor of the defen- dants as to the counts of undue influence and tortious interference, and in favor of V as to the count of adverse possession. Subsequently, the trial court set aside the verdict as to the count of adverse possession. On appeal, the plaintiffs claim, inter alia, that the trial court improperly set aside the jury verdict as to the count of adverse possession and abused its discretion in declining to admit the plaintiffs' offer of evidence as to H's character. Held: 1. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in setting aside the jury's verdict in favor of V as to the count of adverse possession because the verdict was unsupported by the evidence; contrary to the plaintiffs' claim, the trial court did not consider V's familial relationship with H and F to be determinative of V's lack of adverse possession but, relying on relevant case law, recognized that it was an imp