Estate of Berger
| Docket Number | B321347 |
| Decision Date | 26 May 2023 |
| Parties | Estate of MELANIE P. BERGER, Deceased. v. GLEE BERGER, Objector and Respondent. MARIA L. CORONADO, Petitioner and Appellant, |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County Super. Ct. No. 20STPB10201, Jonathan L. Rosenbloom, Judge.
McBride Law Group and Julia C. McBride for Petitioner and Appellant.
Law Office of Rodney Gould, Rodney Gould and Armine Singh for Objector and Respondent.
The Probate Code mandates that a document will be considered a "will" capable of being probated in court only if the document is in writing, signed (or authorized) by the testator, and signed by two people who witnessed the testator sign or acknowledge her signature. (Prob. Code, § 6110 subds. (a), (b), (c)(1).) 1[] However, the code will overlook a failure to comply with the two-witness requirement if the party seeking to probate the document as a will "establishes by clear and convincing evidence that, at the time the testator signed the [document], the testator intended the [document] to constitute the testator's will." (§ 6110, subd. (c)(2).) This appeal presents two questions: (1) In evaluating the testator's intent may a probate court consider extrinsic evidence of the circumstances surrounding the document's execution if the intent expressed by the document's terms is unambiguous and (2) Do the facts of this case compel, as a matter of law, a finding by clear and convincing evidence that the drafter of the document at issue here intended the document at issue to make a revocable disposition of property that takes effect upon her death? We conclude that the answer to both questions is "yes." We accordingly reverse the probate court's order declining to probate the document as a will.
Melanie Berger (Melanie) started dating Maria Coronado (Maria) in the spring of 2002.[3] At that time, Maria was in the midst of a divorce and had three daughters who were then 15, 11, and 10 years old. Melanie had met the daughters a few times prior to August 2002. In early August 2002, Maria proposed marriage to Melanie with a diamond solitaire ring and the two became engaged.
Melanie had a sister, Glee (sister). Melanie and her sister had an "off and on" relationship. They would talk on the phone each month, but Melanie never mentioned Maria to her sister.
Melanie was assigned male at birth.
After living as a woman and wearing female clothing for a year as her doctor ordered, Melanie arranged to have gender reassignment surgery in late August 2002. That surgery entailed the surgical alteration of her sex organs.
After proposing to Melanie but before Melanie had her surgery, Maria traveled to Spain with her daughters to visit family. While Maria was in Spain, Melanie and Maria corresponded through email using a variety of different email accounts. Specifically, Maria sent Melanie an email on August 13, 2002, which was the day she arrived in Spain; she sent another email to Melanie on August 14, 2002.
On August 16, 2002, while Maria was still in Spain, Melanie printed out a letter on stationery from her then-employer, the Social Security Administration (the letter). The letter starts with the date "8-16-02"; lists Melanie's full name, address, and social security number; and begins with the salutation "To whom it may concern." The letter then reads as follows:
"I, Melanie Perry Berger, with sound mind and excellent health, name Maria L. [Coronado], [lists Maria's then-current address], as my sole beneficiary in the event of my death. She will take ownership of all my personal possessions and property located at [address of Melanie's house in Pasadena]. She will make the sole determinations as to what she will keep, and what personal belongings that may, or may not, be distributed to any inquiring family members. She will also receive, and have full discretion of:
1. My [Pasadena] home located at [listing address].
2. My retirement Thrift Savings. 3. My 1984 Mercedes Benz 300 CD, license [listing number]. 4. My Washington Mutual checking account [listing number]. 5. Any and all wages paid to my account, post mortem.
It should be noted that I would prefer to have some of the above Thrift assets set aside for the education of [Maria's] three daughters, [naming each]. This is, however, only a suggestion, and Maria . . . shall have the final decision on these matters."
The letter closes with "Sign[ed] and dated 8-16-02 in Pasadena, California," and beneath it, Melanie's signature. (A scanned copy of the letter, with private information redacted, is attached as appendix A, post, page 24.)
No one witnessed Melanie sign the letter.
On the very same day as the letter is dated, Melanie sent Maria an email informing her that Melanie "decided" to "leave the house, all the belongings, [her] record collection and [her] car" to Maria and also would "leave [her] retirement savings in [Maria's] name to be used for the three girls['] college education in the event of [her] death." Melanie explained that she would "leave these documents on [Maria's] desk" "chair" "before [Melanie] leaves" for her gender reassignment surgery.
Over the next several days, Melanie sent several more emails to Maria. On August 18, 2002, she sent an email referring to Maria as her "dearest," "sweetest" "love." On August 19, 2002, Melanie sent a few emails to Maria expressing frustration that Maria had not responded to the "number of emails" that Melanie had sent in the last few days. She also reiterated that "the documents regarding [her] will to [Maria] will be on [Maria's] desk chair at [Maria's] apartment, and the originals will be in [Melanie's] in[-]box on [her] desk at home." Maria admitted that she had difficulty responding quickly to Melanie's emails.
When Maria returned home from Spain, she found a copy of the letter on her desk chair.
Although Melanie and Maria continued dating for another six months after Melanie's surgery and Maria's return from Spain, the two did not discuss the letter at any point thereafter. Neither Melanie nor Maria mentioned the letter to Maria's daughters.
Melanie did not file the paperwork to designate Maria as the beneficiary on her retirement account.
Melanie and Maria ended their romantic relationship in the spring of 2003, and ceased all contact with one another.
Melanie became somewhat of a recluse and "hardly ever left the house."
In 2020, Melanie became increasingly religious and told neighbors that she wanted to leave her assets "to the church." There is no evidence Melanie ever memorialized her new intention.
As the pastor of Melanie's church was going through Melanie's personal effects in her home, he found the letter at the bottom of one of the drawers of Melanie's desk. The pastor gave a copy to Melanie's sister and called Maria to inform her of Melanie's death.
By this point in time, Maria had lost the copy of the letter Melanie had left on her desk chair 18 years earlier.
On February 4, 2021, Maria filed a petition seeking to have the letter probated as Melanie's will. Melanie's sister, who was otherwise Melanie's sole heir at law, opposed the petition.
The probate court held a two-day evidentiary hearing in September 2021. Maria, Melanie's sister and a handwriting expert testified. The court admitted the letter as well as several of the August 2002 emails between Melanie and Maria.
At the conclusion of the second day, the probate court denied Maria's petition. Because the letter did not comply with the general requirements for a will under the Probate Code, the court viewed its "threshold" task-before reaching any questions of fraud or undue influence-as "ascertain[ing]" "whether" Maria had proven, by clear and convincing evidence, that Melanie intended the letter to be her will. The court expressed that it "ha[d] doubts about the letter and its context," explaining that "perhaps" Melanie meant to benefit Maria or "perhaps, she had forgotten" about the letter in the intervening years. The court noted that Melanie had closed her retirement account in 2012, ten years after signing the letter. The court also had "questions about [Maria's] credibility," insofar as she was "not an accurate reporter of the facts." Specifically, the court found it hard to believe that Maria and Melanie did not discuss the letter, that they did not discuss Melanie's finances, that Maria did not tell her daughters about the letter, and that Maria did not go through Melanie's house "look[ing] for the [original of the] will"; in the court's view, this was all "strange" and "somewhat inconsistent with what engaged people do." The court also pointed to Maria's inability to remember by name one of Melanie's neighbors whom Melanie mentioned in one of the 2002 emails.
In October 2021, Maria filed a motion to reopen the evidentiary hearing to introduce more email correspondence between Melanie and Maria from August 2002. The trial court granted the motion and, in March 2022, held a further hearing where it permitted Maria to offer additional testimony and thereafter admitted some-but not all-of a bevy of additional emails. The court ultimately re-adopted its earlier ruling but somewhat cryptically...
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