Bartlett v. Mirabal

• Decision Date: 03 March 2000
• Docket Number: No. 19,929.,19,929.
• Parties: Gia May BARTLETT, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Maria R. MIRABAL, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: Court of Appeals of New Mexico

999 P.2d 1062

128 N.M. 830

Gia May BARTLETT, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Maria R. MIRABAL, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 19,929.

Court of Appeals of New Mexico.

March 3, 2000.

Certiorari Granted April 20, 2000.

Howard L. Anderson, Albuquerque, for Appellant.

Thomas L. Popejoy, Popejoy Law Offices, P.C., Albuquerque, for Appellee.

Certiorari Granted, No. 26,253, April 20, 2000.

OPINION

APODACA, Judge.

{1} This interlocutory appeal arises from a will contest. Petitioner Gia May Bartlett filed the will of Silvestre Mirabal (Decedent) for formal probate. Decedent's sister, Respondent Maria R. Mirabal (Contestant), challenged the will on various grounds. Petitioner moved for summary judgment. At the hearing on the motion, Contestant abandoned all grounds for contesting the will except her claim of undue influence. The trial court denied the motion. On appeal, Petitioner argues that the evidentiary standard of proof by clear and convincing evidence should have been applied by the trial court in determining whether genuine issues of material fact existed on the issue of undue influence. The basis for Petitioner's argument is that, because Contestant was ultimately required to prove undue influence by clear and convincing evidence at trial, the determination of whether there were disputed material facts in the summary judgment proceeding should have been governed by the same substantive evidentiary standards that applied to the case on the merits. We disagree and affirm.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

{2} In response to Petitioner's motion for summary judgment, Contestant presented evidence intended to show that Petitioner had a confidential relationship with Decedent and that suspicious circumstances surrounded the execution of his last two wills. Both of these wills gave his entire estate to Petitioner. According to Contestant, the suspicious circumstances included (1) the unnatural and unjust distribution of the estate, (2) lack of consideration for the transfer or undue profit by Petitioner, (3) Petitioner's participation in the procurement of the will, (4) Decedent's age and frail health, (5) Decedent's susceptibility to undue influence, (6) Petitioner's isolation of Decedent from his family, and (7) abuse of a confidential relationship.

{3} In granting the interlocutory appeal and denying summary judgment, the trial court's order specifically provided:

If the burden of proof at summary judgment proceedings were in fact "clear and convincing evidence", as held by the United States Supreme Court in Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986), and further suggested by Justice Ransom in Eoff v. Forrest, 109 N.M. 695, 789 P.2d 1262 (1990), the Court would have granted [Petitioner's] Motion for Summary Judgment and dismissed the case.

Implicit in the order's language is that, for purposes of deciding the existence of genuine issues of material fact at the summary judgment stage, the trial court used the preponderance-of-the-evidence standard, even though the burden of proof on the issue of undue influence at trial would have been under a clear-and-convincing standard.

II. DISCUSSION

A. Standard of Review

{4} An appeal from the grant or denial of a motion for summary judgment presents a question of law. We therefore review de novo the trial court's denial of summary judgment. See Harrell v. Hayes, 1998-NMCA-122, ¶ 11, 125 N.M. 814, 965 P.2d 933

.

B. The Evidentiary Standard in Summary Judgment Proceedings

1. Petitioner's Contentions Generally

{5} Petitioner essentially argues that New Mexico has already adopted the United States Supreme Court's rationale in Anderson. Anderson, of course, applied only to the federal standard for summary judgment. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 56. It is exclusively the province of the state judiciary in New Mexico to decide the standard for our state rules on summary judgment. See Rule 1-056 NMRA 2000. It is the state's prerogative to follow or not to follow Anderson. If Petitioner is correct that New Mexico has already adopted Anderson for our state rule, then the trial court should have applied the standard of clear and convincing evidence, the burden of proof at trial, in considering her motion for summary judgment. See Anderson, 477 U.S. at 254,

106 S.Ct. 2505 ("When determining if a genuine factual issue... exists ... a trial judge must bear in mind the actual quantum and quality of proof necessary to support liability. . . .").

{6} As additional support for her argument, Petitioner analogizes a motion for summary judgment to a motion for a directed verdict, insisting that the same evidentiary considerations apply to both. See id. ("Just as the `convincing clarity' requirement is relevant in ruling on a motion for directed verdict, it is relevant in ruling on a motion for summary judgment."); see also Melnick v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 106 N.M. 726, 727, 749 P.2d 1105, 1106 (1988)

(considering cases on summary judgment and directed verdict in evaluating propriety of reconsideration of denial of motion for a directed verdict).

{7} Our Supreme Court, however, has clearly distinguished between summary judgment proceedings and motions for directed verdict. See Eoff, 109 N.M. at 701,

789 P.2d at 1268 (discussing the differences between summary judgment and directed verdict). The Court applied the traditional approach to summary judgment proceedings in which the nonmoving party need only show a genuine issue of material fact and need not present evidence sufficient to meet the burden at trial. Id. The Court determined that, when considering a summary judgment motion, it is not the trial court's task to determine if all the elements will be met, only that "one or more factual issues" are in dispute. Id.

{8} Petitioner's contentions require us to examine summary judgment proceedings in New Mexico. The sole question posed is whether Anderson has already been adopted in this state. Our examination of New Mexico cases involving summary judgment proceedings leads us to answer this question in the negative.

{9} In his special concurrence, Judge Alarid relies on six New Mexico cases he maintains support his contention that our courts have made "a significant move towards adoption" of the Anderson standard in summary judgment proceedings. The first two cases, Blauwkamp v. University of New Mexico Hosp., 114 N.M. 228, 836 P.2d 1249 (Ct.App.1992), and Furgason v. Clausen, 109 N.M. 331, 785 P.2d 242 (Ct.App.1989), are inapposite.

{10} Blauwkamp involved a medical malpractice case in which plaintiff would not be able to "establish an essential element of [plaintiff's] claim" without an expert witness. Blauwkamp, 114 N.M. at 232, 836 P.2d at 1253 (quoting Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 331, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986)). In such a situation, the issue was cut and dry because, without an expert, plaintiff had no case, and thus, "on these facts Celotex and existing New Mexico cases produce[d] the same result." Id. Additionally, Blauwkamp determined that the mere offering of a qualified expert was sufficient to overcome a motion for summary judgment. The weight to apply to the testimony (the qualification of the expert) was "not properly resolved by summary judgment." Id. at 235, 836 P.2d at 1256.

{11} Furgason dealt with a unique issue involving the alleged defamation of a public figure. In that case, in considering a motion for summary judgment, the trial court needed to know what issues of fact were disputed. One of these issues was whether the plaintiff was a public figure. If he was, then the issue of negligence in the case was irrelevant. If he was not a public figure, then negligence would be a genuine issue of material fact. Under these circumstances, the trial court was required to determine the substantive evidentiary standard (that is, the standard that applied to directed verdicts but not summary judgment proceedings) before deciding whether to grant summary judgment because the disputed issue of fact depended on whether negligence was relevant.

{12} We should also note that Furgason relied on an old New Mexico Supreme Court case, Mahona-Jojanto, Inc. v. Bank of New Mexico, 79 N.M. 293, 442 P.2d 783 (1968), in its discussion of the summary judgment standard. The use of Mahona-Jojanto, a case decided long before Anderson and which was steeped in the traditional approach to summary judgment, simply does not support the view of the special concurrence. It should also be noted that Furgason supports our later suggestion in this opinion that Anderson may have been originally intended to be limited to defamation cases.

{13} The special concurrence next relies on Wolford v. Lasater, 1999-NMCA-024, 126 N.M. 614, 973 P.2d 866, claiming that our Court there recognized there were no distinctions between federal and state summary judgment standards. We disagree. Although Wolford agreed "with Defendants' argument that the federal and our state's constructions of summary judgment do not differ substantively," the opinion clearly recognized that the standards were different, id. ¶ 11, as we note in this opinion.

{14} Finally, the three New Mexico Supreme Court cases discussed by the special concurrence merely relied on either Anderson or Celotex simply for the boilerplate language on summary judgment standards. Those cases contained no language that could be construed as "a significant move towards" the Anderson approach to summary judgment. Indeed, two of the cases cite to Celotex only once and do not even mention Anderson. As for Goradia v. Hahn Co., 111 N.M. 779, 810 P.2d 798 (1991), a case heavily relied on by the special concurrence, a careful reading shows no such movement towards the adoption of Anderson in New Mexico.

{15} In Goradia, as in Chen v. Metropolitan Ins. and Annuity Co., 907 F.2d 566 (5th Cir.1990), a case relied on by Goradia and the special concurrence, there were no genuine issues of fact in dispute....