Stamm v. Crowley

In guardianship proceedings, a guardian ad litem (GAL) must be appointed to investigate and make recommendations to the court. While we hold that the trial court may admit a GAL’s testimony regarding her opinion and the basis for that opinion if the court finds the evidence likely to be helpful under ER 702, there are limits to such testimony and a jury must understand that it is to evaluate the GAL’s testimony in the same manner as the testimony of any other witness. Those limits were not honored here when the GAL testified that she had a special role in assessing credibility and in serving…