Even for seasoned Orphans’ Court practitioners, the Dead Man’s Act is a difficult statute to navigate. The statute becomes even murkier when discussing it in conjunction with joint accounts, and the ability of surviving account holders to testify about both their interactions with a decedent and the intent behind the account. Fortunately, a handful of Pennsylvania cases carve out this ability to testify for surviving joint account holders, using both the traditional analysis of who represents a decedent’s interests on death and invoking the devisavit vel non exception to the Dead Man’s Act.

The Dead Man’s Act is a substantive rule of law in Pennsylvania, designed to prevent a surviving party to a transaction from testifying adversely to a deceased party, “since he could lie and attempt to testify favorably to himself and adversely to the deceased party, knowing the other party is incapable of contradicting the fallacious testimony.” See In re Fiedler, 132 A.2d 1010, 1024 (Pa. Super 2016) (citing Punxsatawney Municipal Airport Authority v. Lellock, 745 A.2d 666, 670 (Pa. Super. 2000)). The Dead Man’s Act serves as an exception to the general rule in Pennsylvania that all witnesses are competent to testify except in certain limited circumstances (citing Larkin v. Metz, 580 A.2d 1150, 1152 (Pa. Super. 1990)).