Coulter v. Coulter
| Decision Date | 25 April 2023 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action 22-1806 |
| Parties | JEAN COULTER v. JAMES P. COULTER, SUSAN VERO COULTER, KAREN VERO MORROW, ROGER MORROW, SARA MORROW, BENJAMIN MORROW, PAMELA VERO HAMMONDS, STEVEN HAMMONDS, PATRICK HAMMONDS, MARY JOANNE VERO ANDERSON, BRIAN ANDERSON, ABIGAIL ANDERSON, NICHOLAS ANDERSON, SARA JANE SANZOTTI VERO, S. MICHAEL YEAGER, STEPHANIE YEAGER SHAFFER, WILLIAM R. SHAFFER, NANCY NATALE, JOSEPH CAPAROSA, LISA M. HYATT, BARBARA COULTER, JONATHAN W. VALVANO, RONALD ELLIOTT, DILLON MCCANDLESS KING COULTER AND GRAHAM, OFFICER HOWARD, BOB O'NEILL, UNKNOWN OFFICER, UNKNOWN EMPLOYEES, U.S. DISTRICT JUDGE MARILYN HORAN |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of Pennsylvania |
An adult daughter is upset with how her siblings handled assets in their mother's estate and have treated her since resolving the estate disputes. The siblings still seek relief from each other in the Butler County courts in a pending case. The daughter is upset with the Butler County judges' rulings and case assignment. The daughter chose a new forum. She now pro se seeks over 100 million dollars claiming a massive conspiracy by her siblings and seemingly everyone else she thinks are involved in denying her due process in the state courts. She sues her brother's lawyer state court judges, members of judges' families, her siblings' families, police officers, court reporters, and fire department employees. She baldly charges a massive conspiracy to deprive her of protected rights. She has not lost her interest in her mother's home. She is still litigating rights in her mother's home in Butler County. She patches together a variety of grievances in and surrounding the state court matters arising from administering her mother's estate. We appreciate she is proceeding without a lawyer and liberally construe her varied theories. But she still needs to plead facts of a conspiracy to deprive her civil rights by persons who can be liable under the civil rights laws. She does not allege facts sufficient to invoke our civil rights laws by simply repeating her conclusion of a massive conspiracy against her. She does not come close after two attempts. We dismiss her amended Complaint with prejudice.
I. Alleged pro se facts and public record.[1]
Ellen P. Coulter, the mother of three adult children living in Butler County, Pennsylvania, died on December 22 2004.[2] Ellen Coulter left her estate including the Coulter family home located in Butler County Pennsylvania and heirlooms to her three children-Jean Coulter, James (Jim) P. Coulter, and Barbara Coulter.[3] Jim Coulter, who is an attorney, petitioned for probate on January 31, 2005 in the Orphans Court Division of the Butler County Court of Common Pleas as the “administrator” of his mother's estate so he could divide his mother's assets among the three Coulter siblings.[4] Attorney Jim filed a first and final account of the estate, disclosed the net estate, and filed the schedule of distribution to each beneficiary, which the Orphans' Court judge approved in 2009.[5] Sister Jean received one third of the estate just like her brother Attorney Jim and sister Barbara.[6] Sister Jean did not object.[7]
The Coulter siblings, at some unidentified time, agreed their sister Jean would pay all the usual, ongoing expenses of the Coulter family home, instead of rent, and Jim and Barbara's rights to the home would be limited to those of a landlord in a typical landlord/tenant relationship.[8] So Jean paid utilities, taxes, insurance, and for the routine maintenance of the Coulter family home.[9]
Jim offered to sell his share of the Coulter family home to Jean sometime in 2011.[10] Jean gave him a cashier's check after she accepted his written offer to sell his one-third share of the home.[11]
Jean criticizes her brother Jim's administration of the Estate.
Jean claims Jim stole from Ellen's estate at an unidentified time including from her “Irrevocable Trust Life Insurance Policy and/or Policies.”[12] Jim divided one policy between himself and Barbara, leaving Jean out entirely, and sent Jean a forged document to cover it up.[13]Sister Barbara and her husband Jonathan Valvano attempted to cover-up Jim's theft by “permit[ing]” the “obviously forged documents to be sent, via [Mr. Valvano's] ‘work' email account, to Jean” so she would be “conned” into believed she already received her share of the insurance proceeds.[14] But Jean alleges Jim also stole from Barbara by excluding her from their mother's second life insurance policy.[15]
Jim also concealed and diverted assets which were “[w]illed” to Jean by allowing his two sons, his wife Susan Vero Coulter, and her extended family to benefit from their mother's estate although they were not named in her will.[16] Jim permitted Susan, Susan's mother Sara Jane Sanzotti Vero, and Susan's three sisters and their families-the Morrow family, the Hammonds family, and the Anderson family-to enter the Coulter family home and allowed them “to remove valuables[.]”[17] For example, Jim's extended family removed “[j]ewelry, silver flatware and other domestic valuables” in 2013 from the Coulter family home despite Jim telling Jean he would move the family heirlooms to a secure area until the Coulter siblings could get together to divide them.[18] Jim enters the Coulter family home in 2013 without Jean's permission.
Jim also entered the Coulter family home sometime in July 2013 without Jean's permission.[19] Jean became aware of Jim's unauthorized entrance through an alert from her alarm company reporting a possible break-in at the Coulter family home.[20] Jean went to the house and found Jim, his wife Susan, and their son Joseph Coulter wandering through the home.[21] Jim told Jean he broke in through the window because he had to make emergency repairs due to a neighbor's tree damaging the power line.[22] But Jim agreed he and his family “had no business in the home beyond assuring that, on an emergency basis, the condition of the house was not in danger of serious damages occurring in the near future” given the Coulter siblings' earlier agreement Jim and Barbara would have limited access to the home[23]
Various individuals express an interest in the Coulter family home.
Jean contends various individuals expressed an interest in the Coulter family home to her at unknown times. For example, the Honorable S. Michael Yeager, a Butler County Court of Common Pleas judge, at an unidentified time expressed to Jean how he admired the Coulter family home.[24] Jean “believe[s]” Judge Yeager wanted his daughter, Stephanie Yeager and her husband the Honorable William Shaffer, also a Butler County Court of Common Pleas judge, to buy the home he found so “attractive[.]”[25]
The Honorable Marilyn Horan-then a judge on the Butler County Court of Common Pleas-resides in the same neighborhood as the Coulter family home and had an interest in the Coulter family home.[26] Jean alleges “on a number of occasions” Judge Horan approached Jean to try and convince her to sell the home.[27] Jean contends Judge Horan wanted someone “better suited” than Jean to buy the home “which appears to be legally trained professionals who also ‘happen' to be ‘at least' Christian, and preferably Catholic.”[28] Jean informed Judge Yeager at some unidentified she would never sell the Coulter family home so it would not be available for purchase until after her death.[29]
Jean sues Jim when he refuses to give up his interest the Coulter family home.
Jean claims she never received Jim's ownership rights to the Coulter family home despite giving him a cashier's check for his interest in the home in 2011.[30] Jim cashed the cashier's check Jean gave him in 2011 at some unidentified time.[31] But then a bank employee told Jean at an unknown time an unidentified person eventually “returned to the bank” the money from the check.[32]
So Jean sued Jim on August 12, 2014 in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas seeking specific performance based on her payment in full for Jim's asking price “of the still jointly owned” Coulter family home.[33] Jean also sought damages for Jim's removal of trees surrounding the Coulter family home; damages for Jim's removal of valuable property from the home from July 2013 through early 2014; damages for defective work on the gutters; damages for invasion of privacy from Jim's extended family entering the Coulter family home so they could divide the Coulter family heirlooms; damages from Jim's family breaking into the Coulter family home in July 2013 and destroying the home alarm system; and damages for expenses incurred by Jean to “travel for repairs” following “break-ins” in 2013 and 2014.[34]
Jim's counsel Ronald Elliott, Esquire of Dillon McCandless King Coulter & Graham LLP moved to transfer Jean's case to the Court of Common Pleas of Butler County.[35] The Honorable Lisette Shirdan-Harris granted the motion to transfer.[36] Jean moved for reconsideration which Judge Shirdan-Harris denied.[37] Jean appealed, but the Pennsylvania Superior Court affirmed holding Judge Shirdan-Harris appropriately granted Jim's motion to transfer her case to Butler County.[38] The state court assigns Judge Yeager to hear Jean's case.
Jean contends “it is clear” Jim and Attorney Elliott transferred the case to Butler County “exclusively for the purposes of assuring” Judge Yeager would be assigned to the case.[39] Jean contends Judge Yeager “admits to having a significant personal interest in the property” and so he took the case so he “would be in the position to rule in the case which would determine [whether Judge] Yeager or one of his relatives would be able to purchase the home.”[40] Jean claims Jim, Judge Yeager, Attorney Elliott, and Judge Horan all...
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