Brown v. Brown
Decision Date | 10 September 2014 |
Docket Number | No. 1D13–4452.,1D13–4452. |
Citation | 149 So.3d 108 |
Parties | Joseph H. BROWN, Appellant, v. Frank BROWN, Jr., Appellee. |
Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
E. Leon Jacobs, Jr. of Williams & Jacobs, LLC, Tallahassee, for Appellant.
Brant Hargrove, Tallahassee, for Appellee.
This is an appeal from a final order of the circuit court directing that certain joint and Pay–on–Death (“POD”) deposit accounts be included in the Estate of Elizabeth M. Brown (“Estate”) and the funds distributed equally among Mrs. Brown's six children, according to her Last Will and Testament. For the reasons explained below, we affirm the order as to the joint accounts, but reverse as to the POD accounts.
Mrs. Brown, who died on January 24, 2007, was the mother of Appellant, Appellee and four other adult children. Her will contains several specific devises, and provides that all other property not specifically bequeathed be distributed equally among her children. Appellee, curator of the Estate, filed a complaint against Appellant seeking, inter alia, a declaratory judgment that certain of Mrs. Brown's accounts are assets of the Estate. The accounts at issue are either joint accounts naming Appellant as co-owner or POD accounts naming Appellant as a beneficiary:
Accordingly, the magistrate recommended that all funds be deposited into the Estate account. The circuit adopted the magistrate's report in toto.
Appellate review of the trial court's adoption and ratification of a magistrate's report and recommendation is for abuse of discretion. See generally Vargas v. Deutsche Bank Nat. Trust Co., 104 So.3d 1156, 1165 (Fla. 3d DCA 2012) ; Burnstine v. Townley, 976 So.2d 624, 626 (Fla. 5th DCA 2008). Examining the magistrate's report in the instant case, we conclude first that section 655.79, by its express terms, applies only to joint deposit accounts—i.e., accounts bearing the names of two or more co-owners—and not to POD accounts. The statute reads, in pertinent part:
§ 655.79, Fla. Stat. (2007) (emphasis added). Neither of the three POD accounts at issue is a “deposit account in the names of two or more persons.” Consequently, the magistrate erred in applying the statutory presumption in section 655.79 and, more importantly, the mechanism for overcoming the presumption to the POD accounts.
The magistrate should have relied on section 655.82, Florida...
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