Bell v. Bell
| Decision Date | 15 August 2018 |
| Docket Number | BUSINESS AND CONSUMER COURT DOCKET NO. BCD-CV-2017-03 |
| Parties | GARY W. BELL, Plaintiff, v. BRYAN W. BELL, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | Maine Superior Court |
STATE OF MAINE
CUMBERLAND, ss.
JUDGMENT ON BIFURCATED ISSUES
The parties before the Court are Plaintiff Gary W. Bell and Defendants Bryan W. Bell, Marie P. Bell, Breen D. Bell, Joanne Bell, and Patricia Bell.1 Service has been properly effectuated on all Defendants. All parties are represented by counsel, as follows: Gary is represented by Brett Baber, Esq.; Defendants Bryan and Marie are represented by Richard Currier, Esq.; and Defendants Breen, Joanne, and Patricia are represented by Brent A. York, Esq.
PROCEDURAL HISTORY
Plaintiff Gary filed his initial Complaint against Bryan in Caribou Superior Court on December 1, 2015. Bryan timely filed an Answer and Counterclaim. Gary thereafter filed his First Amended Complaint February 8, 2017, again naming only Bryan as a Defendant and Marie as an interested party. Thereafter, the case was transferred to the Business and Consumer Court and Gary filed his operative pleading, the Second Amended Complaint in this Court on May 3, 2017, naming Bryan, Marie, Breen, Joanne, and Patricia as Defendants.
This matter now comes before the Court after a two-day bench trial held at the Presque Isle District Court February 28 and March 1, 2018. On October 25, 2017, this Court granted Plaintiff's unopposed motion for bifurcation of trial, agreeing to determine specific issues at a bifurcated trialbefore all of the other claims set out in Plaintiff's Complaint and the Defendants' Counterclaim. See M.R. Civ. P. 42(b). These specific issues relate to the parties' real estate claims and involve competing requests for a declaratory judgment of ownership among the parties with respect to a group of largely contiguous properties described by both parties as the "Bell Farms." Plaintiff and Defendants bring competing petitions for partition. All other issues raised in the pleadings will be the subject of a jury trial to be scheduled by this Court following its determination of the current real estate issues and a further pretrial conference of the parties. The Court has jurisdiction pursuant to 4 M.R.S. § 105, 14 M.R.S. §§ 5953, 6051(7),(13), 6502.
Following the trial, the parties obtained and reviewed certain files of Rudman & Winchell, a law firm that had a role in creating certain trusts that are at issue in this case. The parties have submitted further stipulations as to the meaning and content of those files, together with additional exhibits from them. Without objection, and based on the accompanying stipulations that the Court accepts by way of evidentiary foundation for the introduction of the exhibits, Defendants' Exhibits X through GG are admitted. Based upon testimony at trial, the stipulations of the parties set forth in the Joint Pretrial Statement and the stipulations of the parties regarding the contents of the Rudman & Winchell files, Plaintiff's Exhibits 100-150, Defendants' Exhibits A-GG which were admitted without objections as to foundation or authenticity, the record was closed. The Parties' post-trial written closing arguments and proposed judgments were complete on May 4, 2018 and the matter was taken under advisement. Following that, the Court makes the following findings of fact and conclusions of law.
FACTS
These parties are all family members who have been involved in some capacity with the operation of the Bell Farms over the years. Gary and Patricia are the parents of brothers Bryan and Breen and were previously married, having divorced in 1997. (Def's Ex. D.) Bryan is married to Marie and Breen is married to Joanne. The issues presently before the Court relate exclusively to determining the parties' respective ownership of the real estate that makes up the Bell Farms, which consists mostly of farmland but also includes unimproved land as well as some residences and buildings that have been used in farming operations, such as for storage of crops and equipment and the like. The properties at issue are those described in the deeds found in the following Plaintiff's Exhibits:
100, 102, and 106: The Ford Farm
103 and 104: The Bell Farm
108: The Track Storage
110: The Cheney Farm and the Charlie Smith Farm
112: The Smith Road Farm
113: The Larrabee Farm2
115, 116, and 117: The Avril Boyd Farm
119: The Blaine Farm and a residence now occupied by Gary
125: The Walsh Field, Westfield Storage, and the Kearney Farm
With the exception of Plaintiff's Exhibit 125 these properties are also described in the conveyances to two trusts found in Plaintiff's Exhibits 123-124. Plaintiff's Exhibits 107-109 appear to be transfers to Gary, Bryan, and Breen as tenants in common or as partners. For purposesof this proceeding these properties are part of Bell Farms. Plaintiff's Exhibit 126 describes the Shaw Farms, which is real estate owned by the corporation Bell Brothers, Inc. This is a corporate asset and its ownership is not subject to this phase of the instant proceeding. The properties listed above are hereinafter referred to collectively as the Bell Farms.
The properties described above are located in approximately the location shown on the aerial maps in the appendix to James Park's appraisal (Def's Ex. P.) There are no known third-party ownership interests in or boundary issues pertaining to the Bell Farms.
Gary and Patricia began acquiring the real estate that now composes the Bell Farms between 1959 and 1971. (Pl's Ex. 100, 103.) By 1978, Gary's sons Breen and Bryan were partners in the Gary W. Bell & Sons partnership (the "Partnership"). Although there was testimony that a written partnership agreement was created, no such partnership agreement was admitted into evidence and there was no evidence as to its terms. The Court finds that Gary, Bryan, and Breen are equal partners in the Partnership called Gary W. Bell & Sons.
The real estate acquired since 1971 that has come to compose the Bell Farms was thereafter conveyed to the Partnership or to Gary, Bryan, and Breen as partners. (Pl's Ex. 102, 106, 104, 108, 110, 115-117, 119.) Some land which was once held by the Partnership was thereafter conveyed to Bryan and Breen (Pl's Ex. 111, the "Delbert McCrum Farm") or Gary (Pl's Ex. 114, the "Larrabee Farm"); there was testimony at trial from both sides that these conveyances were intended to increase the parcels' eligibility for federally-backed crop insurance. Whatever the rationale, these parcels were subsequently conveyed to the trusts described below. (Pl's Ex. 123.)
In January 1994, Gary, Bryan, and Breen sought to find some means to keep the ownership of the farm intact in the event that any man divorced his wife. The Court finds that the primary impetus for this development was marital difficulties that Breen was having at the time, although the cause is not particularly relevant as Breen and Joanne have remained married. In furtherance of this goal Bryan retained the services of Rudman & Winchell to establish two realty trusts, viz. the Bell Farms Realty Trust (Pl's Ex. 122) and the Bell Family Realty Trust (Pl's Ex. 121) (collectively the "Trusts"). Bryan testified that he took this action on behalf of and with the permission of Gary and Breen as well as himself; however, there is no evidence that Gary or Breen—or Patricia, Marie, or Joanne—were represented by Rudman & Winchell or any other attorney at that time.
Nonetheless, the Court finds that Gary and Breen supported and participated in Bryan's efforts to revamp the Bell Farms' ownership structure and endorsed the eventual establishment of the Trusts. Based on the testimony of Gary, Bryan, and Breen, it would have been expected that Bryan would be the primary driver in this reorganization effort, as all three men consistently testified that by this time Bryan (with his wife, Marie) was primarily responsible for the "office" side of the farming business. Gary testified that Bryan took over as president of the Corporation sometime in 1994. Plaintiff's Exhibits 121 and 122 contain the declarations of trust for the Trusts; both are signed by Gary, Bryan, and Breen, and their authenticity has been stipulated to. The Court finds that all three partners of the Partnership—Gary, Bryan, and Breen—intended to create the Trusts, the res of which was to be most of the properties previously owned by the Partnership, as described in greater detail in the declarations of trust. (See Pl's Ex. 121-124.)
Despite the fact that the instruments establishing both Trusts specifically refer to a schedule of beneficiaries, the parties have stipulated that the schedules of beneficiaries do not exist.However, there is substantial evidence in the record that the intended beneficiaries were Gary, Patricia, Breen, Joanne, Bryan, and Marie. Gary's position is that each Trust failed ab initio as a matter of law for lack of beneficiaries because the schedules were never created. The Defendants urge this Court to consider the available evidence (testimonial and documentary) and find that these six individuals were the beneficiaries of the Trusts and rule that the Trusts were validly created. The parties agree that the trusts expired by their terms twenty years after they were created, i.e. in January 2015. (Pl's Ex. 121 at ¶ 4; Pl's Ex. 122 at ¶ 20(a).)
As part of the restructuring of the family business, in November 1994, Gary incorporated Bell Brothers, Inc. (the "Corporation"). The primary purpose of the Corporation has been and remains to engage in farming operations on the Bell Farms. The land itself, which for the most part had been conveyed to the three men as partners as explained above, was conveyed back to the three men as trustees of the Trusts. (Pl's Ex. 123-124.) At the time of incorporation, the Corporation's shareholders were Gary,...
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