(b) Statement of declarant in action for declarant's wrongful death. Evidence of a statement by the deceased is not made inadmissible by the hearsay rule if offered against the plaintiff in an action for wrongful death.
(c) Statement of deceased declarant offered in action against declarant's estate.
(1) Evidence of a statement is not made inadmissible by the hearsay rule when offered in an action upon a claim or demand against the estate of the declarant if the statement was made upon the personal knowledge of the declarant at a time when the matter had been recently perceived by the declarant and while the declarant's recollection was clear.
(2) Evidence of a statement is inadmissible under this section if the statement was made under circumstances such as to indicate its lack of trustworthiness.
ADVISORY COMMITTEE NOTE
Subdivision (a) of the rule generally embodies, in simpler terms, the substance of Rules 7 and 17, Utah Rules of Evidence (1971). The effect will be to displace the decisions of the Utah Supreme Court applying Mansfield's Rule to a contest as to the legitimacy of children. Cf. Lopes v. Lopes, 30 Utah 2d 393, 518 P.2d 687 (1974); Miller v. Marticorena, 531 P.2d 487 (1975).
Rule 601 departs from the federal rule by adding two paragraphs to treat the problem of litigation involving deceased persons. The rule supersedes the Utah "Dead Man" statute, Utah Code Annotated, § 78-24-2 (1953), which is no longer operable. However, subparagraph (b) allows a decedent's hearsay statements to be received as an admission against the plaintiff in a wrongful death action. Subparagraph (c) authorizes the admission of a relevant hearsay statement of a deceased when offered in a suit against the estate of the deceased declarant. These two paragraphs have been taken from Sections 1227 and 1261 of the California Evidence Code. They have been placed in Rule 601 because they compensate for the "Dead Man" statute which related to competency and because to place the provisions in the hearsay section of the rules would disturb the correlation between the Utah rules format and the Federal rules. These two subparagraphs should also be read in connection with the other hearsay exceptions in Article VIII, in that statements not within Rule 601 may otherwise be admissible under other hearsay exceptions.