Casey v. Casey

• Decision Date: 08 March 2005
• Docket Number: No. 99,217.,99,217.
• Citation: 109 P.3d 345,2005 OK 13
• Parties: Max CASEY, Patricia Nichols and Carolyn O'Neal Plaintiffs/Appellees, v. Margie CASEY, Defendant/Appellant.
• Court: Oklahoma Supreme Court

109 P.3d 345

2005 OK 13

Max CASEY, Patricia Nichols and Carolyn O'Neal Plaintiffs/Appellees, v. Margie CASEY, Defendant/Appellant.

No. 99,217.

Supreme Court of Oklahoma.

March 8, 2005.

James A. Williamson of Tulsa, OK, for Plaintiffs/Appellees.

Charles J. Brackney of Jay, OK, for Defendant/Appellant. ¶ 0 This quiet title action stems from a dispute over joint tenancy property, in which the surviving spouse of a deceased joint tenant claims a probate homestead interest. The joint tenants, Plaintiffs/Appellees, Max Casey, Patricia Nichols, and Carolyn O'Neal (hereinafter "Joint Tenants") asserted title and ownership rights over certain joint tenancy property upon the death of their co-joint tenant father, the spouse of Margie Casey (hereinafter "Widow"). While Widow asserts no title or ownership claim in the property, she claims merely that the Joint Tenants' interest is subject to her homestead right to possession and occupancy as a surviving spouse pursuant to 58 O.S.2001, § 311. The trial court sustained the Joint Tenants' Motion for Partial Summary Judgment and entered judgment for the Joint Tenants as a matter of law. The trial court further denied Widow's Motion to Reconsider, concluding that "upon the death, record ownership upon the deed passed to the children. No property remained in decedent's name that homestead could attach to." Widow appealed and the Court of Civil Appeals, Division IV (hereinafter "COCA"), reversed and remanded with instructions. Joint Tenants sought certiorari, which we granted.

CERTIORARI PREVIOUSLY GRANTED; COURT OF CIVIL APPEALS' OPINION VACATED; JUDGMENT OF THE TRIAL COURT IS AFFIRMED.

LAVENDER, J.

¶ 1 The issue in the present cause is whether the trial court erred in entering judgment as a matter of law in favor of the Joint Tenants in its determination that Joint Tenants are sole owners of the joint tenancy property in question by virtue of right of survivorship and that Widow has no homestead interest in the property. Widow appealed, claiming a probate interest in the property pursuant to 58 O.S. § 311 and the COCA reversed and remanded with instructions in Widow's favor. We hold that the trial court correctly entered judgment as a matter of law in favor of Joint Tenants as to this issue in this case. We further hold that the purported homestead property was "otherwise disposed of according to law" within the meaning of § 311 when title passed by operation of law to the surviving Joint Tenants upon the death of their co-joint tenant father and therefore, at that time there was no property to which Widow's probate homestead right could attach.

I FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

¶ 2 Earl Casey married his second wife, Widow, in 1982. Joint Tenants are the adult children of Earl Casey and his first wife. For many years prior to his marriage to Widow, Earl Casey owned property on Grand Lake (hereinafter "lake property").¹ For the first several years of their marriage, Earl Casey and Widow resided in Tulsa and traveled to the lake property for occasional weekend visits.

¶ 3 In 1983, during that period of their periodic use of the lake property as a vacation home, Earl Casey conveyed the lake property by warranty deed² to his children (the Joint Tenants) and to himself as joint tenants with a right of survivorship. Earl Casey and Widow thereafter moved to the lake property sometime in 1988, thus establishing the lake property as their permanent residence at that time. The couple resided at the lake property until Earl Casey's death in January, 2002.

¶ 4 Upon Earl Casey's death, Joint Tenants requested that Widow vacate the property and served Widow with a Notice to Quit in May, 2002. Widow refused to vacate the lake property, asserting her homestead right as the surviving spouse.

¶ 5 Joint Tenants filed the instant quiet title action on June 14, 2002 to clear title to the lake property as well as to other property not subject to this appeal. Joint Tenants filed a Motion for Partial Summary Judgment³ as to the lake property, which the trial court sustained, providing in its Journal Entry of Judgment that the Joint Tenants "are the sole and only owners in Joint Tenancy with right of survivorship" and that Widow "has no right title or interest" in the lake property. Widow thereafter filed a Motion to Reconsider, which the trial court denied, determining "upon [Earl Casey's death], record ownership upon the deed passed to the children. No property remained in decedent's name that homestead could attach to."⁴ The trial court certified the case for immediate appeal pursuant to 12 O.S.2001, § 994⁵ in its Journal Entry of Judgment of February 21, 2003 and in its April 11, 2003 Order denying Widow's Motion to Reconsider.

¶ 6 Widow appealed and the COCA reversed and remanded with instructions, determining that Joint Tenant's "title and occupancy [was] subject to the right of homestead according to [58 O.S. § 311]." Joint Tenants thereafter filed their Petition for Certiorari. We previously granted Joint Tenants' Petition for Certiorari.

II

THE TRIAL COURT CORRECTLY DETERMINED JOINT TENANTS WERE ENTITLED TO JUDGMENT AS A MATTER OF LAW AS TO THE LAKE PROPERTY.

¶ 7 As a preliminary point, we note that "summary judgment is appropriate only when it appears [from the pleadings, affidavits, depositions, admissions or other evidentiary materials] there is no substantial controversy as to any material fact and that one of the parties is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Flanders v. Crane Co., 1984 OK 88, 693 P.2d 602, 605; Carris v. John R. Thomas & Assoc., 1995 OK 33, 896 P.2d 522, 530; 12 O.S. Ch.2 App., Dist. Ct.R. 13(d). An order granting summary relief disposes solely of law questions and is reviewable by a de novo standard. Copeland v. Lodge Enterprises, Inc., 2000 OK 36, ¶ 8, 4 P.3d 695, 699; Brown v. Nicholson, 1997 OK 32, ¶ 5, 935 P.2d 319, 321. Additionally, as this case involves the interpretation of the probate homestead statute, 58 O.S. § 311, we note that a legal question involving statutory interpretation is likewise subject to de novo review. Fulsom v. Fulsom, 2003 OK 96, ¶ 2, 81 P.3d 652, 654 (citation omitted).

¶ 8 We also note preliminarily that it is uncontroverted that the lake property at issue in this case is joint tenancy property, the principle characteristic of which is a right of survivorship in the joint tenants. See In re Estate of MacFarline, 2000 OK 87, ¶ 16-17, n. 5, 14 P.3d 551, 558

. Generally, upon the death of a joint tenant, the joint tenancy property "do[es] not become part of the deceased joint tenant's estate, but becomes the sole property of the surviving joint tenant." Id. at ¶ 16, 558 (citations omitted). Further, "by the very nature of the tenancy, title of the joint tenant who dies first terminates at death and vests eo instanti (i.e., immediately) in the survivor. Because joint tenants are seised of the whole while alive, the survivor's interest is simply a continuation, or extension of his/her existing interest." Id. at n. 5 (citing Clovis v. Clovis, 1969 OK 170, 460 P.2d 878, 881). Longstanding Oklahoma case law clearly provides that joint tenancy property passes by operation of law to the surviving joint tenants at the instant of the joint tenant's death. Bleakley v. Bowlby, 1976 OK 158, 557 P.2d 894, 897; Littlefield v. Roberts, 1968 OK 180, 448 P.2d 851, 855. Thus, pursuant to the above general rules governing joint tenancy property, upon the death of joint tenant Earl Casey, his title to the lake property terminated and vested immediately by operation of law in the surviving Joint Tenants.

¶ 9 Widow asserts her constitutional⁶ and statutory homestead interest, relying primarily upon 58 O.S. § 311 as the basis for asserting Joint Tenants' interest in the lake property is subject to her probate homestead right. Section 311 provides in pertinent part as follows:

Upon the death of either husband or wife, the survivor may continue to possess and occupy the whole homestead, which shall not in any event be subject to administration proceedings, except as in this title provided, until it is otherwise disposed of according to law. ...

Id. (emphasis added). The statutory language expressly provides protection of the surviving spouse's homestead right as against disposition of the property via probate administration. In keeping with the plain meaning of this statute, we have determined the surviving spouse's "right to occupy and live on the whole homestead is superior to rights of codevisees of interest in [the] property, whose rights are postponed during her life, or until her voluntary abandonment." Mercer v. Mercer, 1961 OK 210, 365 P.2d 554, 554 (Fifth Syllabus by the Court)(emphasis added). We have held "[t]he homestead is reserved to the family if the title is in either husband or wife...." Lehman v. Tucker, 1936 OK 169, 55 P.2d 62, 63 (citations omitted). Homestead rights acquired by "[n]aked possession without any title or interest whatsoever may, under some circumstances, be sufficient as against all the world except the true owners and those claiming under them." Van Meter v. Field, 1945 OK 173, 159 P.2d 546, 549 (citations omitted).

¶ 10 In this case, we note that in 1983, Earl Casey executed a warranty deed to the lake property (acquired by him prior to the marriage) and thereby conveyed the property to himself and to his children in joint tenancy with a right of survivorship at a time when the lake property did not constitute the homestead of the couple. Thus, this is not a situation in which one intentionally sought to deprive his spouse of a homestead. See Gross v. Gross, 491 N.W.2d 751, 753 (S.D.1992)

(providing homestead laws "are intended to prevent one spouse, in life or in death, from unilaterally depriving the other spouse of a homestead.")

¶ 11 Widow analogizes Joint Tenants' interest in the lake property to that of codevisees' interest and asserts the application of the rule in Mercer v. Mercer on the...