De Prins v. Michaeles

Citation942 F.3d 521
Decision Date15 November 2019
Docket NumberNos. 18-2191,19-1095,s. 18-2191
Parties Harry DE PRINS, Plaintiff, Appellee, v. Michael J. MICHAELES, TRUSTEE OF the DONALD BELANGER IRREVOCABLE TRUST DATED OCTOBER 28, 2008; Donald Belanger Irrevocable Trust Dated October 28, 2008, Defendants, Appellants.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

942 F.3d 521

Harry DE PRINS, Plaintiff, Appellee,
v.
Michael J. MICHAELES, TRUSTEE OF the DONALD BELANGER IRREVOCABLE TRUST DATED OCTOBER 28, 2008; Donald Belanger Irrevocable Trust Dated October 28, 2008, Defendants, Appellants.

Nos. 18-2191
19-1095

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

November 15, 2019


Michael J. Rossi, with whom Conn Kavanaugh Rosenthal Peisch & Ford LLP was on brief, for appellants.

J. Mark Dickison, with whom Ryan A. Ciporkin, Laura S. Sawyer, and Lawson & Weitzen, LLP, were on brief, for appellee.

Before Torruella, Lynch, and Kayatta, Circuit Judges.

LYNCH, Circuit Judge.

942 F.3d 523

This is an important case about Massachusetts trust law which we think is better answered by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC). Accordingly, we certify to the SJC under its Rule 1:03 an unresolved question under both state common law and state statutes concerning whether a judgment creditor of the settlor's estate may reach and apply assets in an irrevocable spendthrift trust after the death of the self-settlor of the trust.

I.

Harry De Prins brought this reach and apply action against a Massachusetts spendthrift trust created by his parents' murderer, Donald Belanger, to enforce an Arizona wrongful death judgment against Belanger's estate. The parties do not dispute the relevant facts, which we draw from the record.

In 2000, Donald and Ellen Belanger moved from Massachusetts to Arizona. In 2005, their neighbors Armand and Simonne De Prins filed a lawsuit against the Belangers and others over shared water rights. In 2007, the De Prinses obtained a monetary judgment against the Belangers.

In June 2008, the Belangers moved from Arizona to California. Ellen Belanger committed suicide there on October 4, 2008, distressed at least in part about the loss of the lawsuit. Immediately after Ellen Belanger's death, the Belangers' daughter, Christina Clark, drove to California and convinced her father to return to Arizona with her.

One week after his wife's suicide, Donald Belanger contacted his attorney, Michael J. Michaeles, about creating an irrevocable trust. On October 28, 2008, Belanger created the Donald A. Belanger Irrevocable Trust Dated October 28, 2008 ("the Trust"), a self-settled trust that named Michaeles as its sole trustee and Belanger himself as its sole beneficiary during his life. The Trust provided that Clark would become the sole beneficiary after Belanger's death. It also contained a spendthrift clause and provided that Belanger could not "alter, amend, revoke, or terminate" the Trust. Belanger signed the Trust on November 3, 2008, and conveyed substantially all of his assets to Michaeles as trustee.

Four months after he signed the Trust, on March 2, 2009, Belanger shot and killed Armand and Simonne De Prins in a Walmart parking lot in Show Low, Arizona. The next morning, police stopped Belanger on Interstate 25 in New Mexico. Before the officer approached Belanger's car, Belanger shot and killed himself.

Michaeles, who was already the trustee of the Trust, then became personal representative of Belanger's estate, which he probated in Arizona.

On June 10, 2010, the De Prinses' son, Harry De Prins ("De Prins"), brought a wrongful death action in Arizona state court against Michaeles as personal representative of Belanger's estate. That action was removed to the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona.

In November 2014, De Prins commenced this separate reach and apply action in the Arizona federal district court against the Trust and Michaeles as its trustee, having learned of the Trust through the wrongful death litigation. In July 2015, De Prins settled the wrongful death action against the estate with Michaeles as personal representative of the estate for $750,000. The judgment entered in the probate action of Belanger's estate stipulated that collection of De Prins's consent judgment against the estate would be

942 F.3d 524

exclusively against the Trust and that the reach and apply action against the Trust would be transferred to the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. The operative amended complaint in this action states a single claim to reach and apply the Trust's assets to satisfy De Prins's $750,000 wrongful death judgment against Belanger's estate.

After cross-motions for summary judgment, the district court entered judgment for De Prins, holding that he had satisfied the three elements for a reach and apply action required by Massachusetts law. De Prins v. Michaeles, 342 F. Supp. 3d 199, 205 (D. Mass. 2018). The district court also held that, under Massachusetts law, a self-settled trust cannot be used to shield one's assets from creditors, even where the trust has a spendthrift provision and the trustee had made no distributions to the settlor prior to his death. Id. at 206.

Michaeles timely appealed.

II.

Since we dispose of some preliminary questions by affirming summary judgment as to those questions, we review those grants of summary judgment de novo, and do so by " ‘scrutiniz[ing] the evidence in the light most agreeable to the nonmoving party, giving that party the benefit of any and all reasonable inferences.’ " Pena v. Honeywell Int'l, Inc., 923 F.3d 18, 27 (1st Cir. 2019) (alteration in original) (quoting Murray v. Kindred Nursing Ctrs. W. LLC, 789 F.3d 20, 25 (1st Cir. 2015) ), reh'g denied, 931 F.3d 100 (1st Cir. 2019).

A. Statute of Limitations

We describe and dispose of the Trust's statute of limitations defense. We do not certify any limitation issues to the SJC.

Michaeles argues that De Prins's reach and apply action is time-barred by Massachusetts's one-year statute of limitations for claims by creditors of the deceased against estates or trusts. Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 190B, § 3-803(a), (b). But that statute plainly does not apply to this action.

It is quite clear that Arizona law provides the choice-of-law rules applicable to this action, which was brought in Arizona. See Ferens v. John Deere Co., 494 U.S. 516, 523, 110 S.Ct. 1274, 108 L.Ed.2d 443 (1990) ("A transfer under § 1404(a) ... does not change the law applicable to a diversity case."); Klaxon Co. v. Stentor Elec. Mfg. Co., 313 U.S. 487, 496, 61 S.Ct. 1020, 85 L.Ed. 1477 (1941) (requiring federal courts sitting in diversity to apply the choice-of-law rules of the forum state). Arizona follows the Restatement (Second) of Conflicts of Laws, applying to a given legal question the law of "the state that has the most significant relationship to the issue." Pounders v. Enserch E & C, Inc., 232 Ariz. 352, 306 P.3d 9, 14 (2013).

Arizona has the most significant relationship to this question, given that Belanger executed the Trust in Arizona, Belanger and both De Prinses were Arizona residents when they died, Belanger murdered the De Prinses in Arizona, and Belanger's estate was probated in Arizona. The Trust's provision that it is governed by Massachusetts law does not determine...

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1 cases
  • De Prins v. Michaeles
    • United States
    • United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts
    • October 20, 2020
    ...the undisputed facts as established by the First Circuit in its opinion accompanying the certified question. See De Prins v. Michaeles, 942 F.3d 521, 523-525 (1st Cir. 2019). In 2000, Donald Belanger and his wife moved from Massachusetts to Arizona. In 2005, a dispute with their neighbors, ......

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