Jacobson v. $55,900 in U.S. Currency

How later courts described this case

• stating, when addressing rebuttal of a statutory presumption regarding forfeiture of property, that “[generally,] a district court should not engage in a qualitative evaluation or weighing of the evidence when deciding whether a claimant has produced sufficient evidence to rebut the statutory presumption[,]” but refusing “to adopt a per se rule prohibiting any consideration of witness credibility” because there might be cases in which “witness credibility may be important, or even essential, for example, when the claimant’s only evidence is his own testimony, and no reasonable fact finder would believe that testimony” (emphasis added)
• stating that a presumption “control[s] the burden of going forward with the evidence,” and once rebutted, the other party, “in order to prevail, must meet its burden of persuasion” (citation omitted) (internal quotation marks omitted)
• stating that “as a general matter, a district court should not engage in a qualitative evaluation or weighing of the evidence when deciding whether a claimant has produced sufficient evidence to rebut the statutory presumption”
• stating that a district court’s determination of the adequacy of foundation offered for expert witness testimony under Minn. R. Evid. 702 will not be reversed absent abuse of discretion

Written by the judges who cited it.