Key legal question
Whether the appellate court wrongly excluded a municipal letter offered only with the appeal brief as an inadmissible novum.
Extracted holding
The exclusion was lawful; under the cantonal rule, new evidence and requests had to be made with the appeal statement, and federal law required only a minimum opportunity for novelties in the higher cantonal instance.
Extracted reasoning
Art. 138 ZGB sets only a federal minimum standard; the appellant had the chance to submit the evidence and related requests already in his own appeal, so his omission could not be cured on appeal.