Estate of Nicole Santos, In re

• Decision Date: 04 January 1995
• Docket Number: NICOLE-SAUR,I,No. 93-1163,93-1163
• Citation: 648 So.2d 277
• Parties: 20 Fla. L. Weekly D114 In re ESTATE OF Luis Joaquin NICOLE SANTOS, Deceased. Lourdes S. NICOLE, Appellant, v. Katherinesabel Nicole-Sauri and Eugenie Nicole-Sauri, Appellees.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 277

648 So.2d 277

20 Fla. L. Weekly D114

In re ESTATE OF Luis Joaquin NICOLE SANTOS, Deceased.

Lourdes S. NICOLE, Appellant, v. Katherine NICOLE-SAURI, Isabel Nicole-Sauri and Eugenie

Nicole-Sauri, Appellees.

No. 93-1163.

District Court of Appeal of Florida,

Fourth District.

Jan. 4, 1995.

Eduardo N. Colon and Robert W. Crawford, Fort Lauderdale, for appellant.

Linda Ann Wells and William J. Palmer of Fine Jacobson Schwartz Nash & Block, Miami, for appellees.

POLEN, Judge.

Lourdes S. Nicole, wife of the decedent and personal representative of decedent's estate, appeals from a partial summary judgment entered in favor of appellees, Katherine Nicole-Sauri, Isabel Nicole-Sauri and Eugenie Nicole-Sauri. Appellees petitioned below to surcharge appellant for breach of fiduciary duty in connection with decedent's estate. The court held that a prenuptial agreement that appellant and the decedent spouse executed in Puerto Rico determining her rights to certain assets accumulated during the marriage would be subject to interpretation under Puerto Rican law. This ruling had the effect of requiring appellant to return to the decedent's estate all assets transferred from decedent to her during the marriage and left for further determination only the identification and nature of the assets. ¹ We affirm in part, reverse in part and remand.

The decedent, Dr. Luis Joaquin Nicole Santos and appellant (respondent below), Lourdes Santiago Santos, were married in Ponce, Puerto Rico, on January 4, 1969, while they were residents of Puerto Rico. Prior to their marriage, the parties entered into a prenuptial agreement. At that time, the decedent was 66 years old and recently divorced from his first wife, by whom he had three children, Katherine, Isabel and Eugenie Nicole-Sauri, appellees. The decedent was an optometrist, farmer and merchant and possessed substantial assets at the time the parties married. Appellant, on the other hand, was a secretary who possessed no assets. After the marriage, the parties continued to live in Puerto Rico until 1981, at which time they moved to Florida. In 1985, however, they returned to Puerto Rico until 1988.

Decedent's Last Will and Testament, dated April 19, 1988, was executed in Puerto Rico in accordance with the Civil Code of Puerto Rico. ² The decedent devised one-third of his estate to be equally divided between the six children of his two marriages (or equally between all of his children, should additional children be declared by court decree), one-third of his estate to be equally divided between the three children of his second marriage, and the remaining discretionary one-third as provided in "c," above, to appellant herein. Appellant's one-third was to go to her after providing two club ownerships to his son by his second marriage (valued at approximately $500 total), as well as a house and lot valued at $65,000 to appellant. Four months after executing his Last Will and Testament, Santos executed a power of attorney to appellant. The following month, appellant and the decedent returned to Florida where they resided until decedent's death on May 20, 1989, at age 86.

On July 19, 1989, the Will was admitted to probate in Puerto Rico, after appellant petitioned for its administration. On September 7, 1989, the Will was also admitted to probate in Broward County. Letters of administration were entered in both jurisdictions appointing appellant, Lourdes S. Nicole, as Personal Representative. At the time of his death, Dr. Nicole's probate estate consisted of real property in Puerto Rico with an approximate value of $240,000, and personal property in Florida with an approximate value of $8,000, according to appellant's listing of the decedent's assets. Appellant listed no assets transferred directly to her by the decedent during their marriage, nor did she list assets transferred indirectly by virtue of her exercise of the power of attorney.

From the commencement of the marriage, the parties' joint assets consisted of social security benefits which they commingled and which the decedent invested along with other monies, including $400,000 the parties won as a result of a lottery ticket they purchased jointly in March, 1977. The house to which appellees/petitioners referred to in the Petition to Surcharge was titled to appellant.

Appellees alleged in their petition to surcharge that appellant had violated the prenuptial agreement. The agreement provided that the parties' property, whenever or however acquired, would be kept separate and apart. Appellees alleged that appellant had failed to do this when she transferred certain property to her name during the marriage prior to decedent's death. The petition further alleged that said transfer violated not only the prenuptial agreement, but also violated the Civil Code of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. ³ As personal representative of the estate, appellant had breached her duty to take possession of all the property or assets belonging to the estate and her duty to maintain an action to recover possession of said property if the holder refused to relinquish same. The petition further stated that appellant personally had possession of property belonging to the estate and had failed to relinquish the property. As such, appellees also claimed that appellant had acted in bad faith.

In her response to the Petition for Surcharge, appellant admitted that she executed the prenuptial agreement, but raised several affirmative defenses, all of which were stricken by the trial court by orders dated January 7, 1992, and June 9, 1992. Pursuant to requests from both appellant and appellees, the trial court took judicial notice of certain portions of the Civil Code of Puerto Rico. The trial court found that the prenuptial agreement was governed by the laws of Puerto Rico and that appellant's affirmative defense of abandonment (i.e., that she and the decedent had abandoned the prenuptial agreement prior to his death) was not available under Puerto Rican law. The second order struck appellant's defense of estoppel (appellant claimed in her response that petitioners- /appellees could not seek any relief which would not be available to the decedent and were therefore barred by the doctrine of estoppel).

Pursuant to appellees' subsequent Motion for Partial Summary Judgment, the trial court, in granting same, found in pertinent part:

1. There are no genuine triable issues of material fact with respect to the matters raised in Petitioner's Motion for Partial Summary Judgment.

2. It is undisputed that Decedent and Respondent entered into the antenuptial agreement at issue in Puerto Rico.

3. It is undisputed that, as of the date of the antenuptial agreement, Respondent had no money or property of any kind.

4. It is undisputed that Decedent and Respondent never entered into a subsequent agreement affecting the antenuptial agreement.

The court noted that it had previously ruled that the laws of Puerto Rico governed the antenuptial agreement and, under Puerto Rican law, the agreement could not be changed or abandoned by the decedent and appellant. As a result, all of appellant's transfers of property that was properly part of the decedent's estate were null and void, except for "moderate gifts bestowed on festive days for the family." The trial court entered partial summary judgment for appellees and ordered that all assets or the fruits its thereof in appellant's possession which in any way originated from the decedent's assets be returned to the estate to allow them to pass pursuant to the decedent's Last Will and Testament. The court also ordered that the nature and amount of the assets to be returned by appellant to the estate would be determined at a subsequent hearing, after which judgment concerning those issues would be entered.

The forum court must initially apply its own conflict of law rule with respect to a contract in order to determine the law it must apply. See Jemco, Inc. v. United Parcel Service, 400 So.2d 499 (Fla. 3d DCA 1981), rev. denied, 412 So.2d 466 (Fla.1982). In the case of contract, Florida follows the conflicts of laws rule that the United States Supreme Court established in Scudder v. Union Nat'l Bank, 91 U.S. 406, 23 L.Ed. 245 (1876), which holds that in cases where the place of making the contract and performing it are not the same, then the laws of the place in which it was made shall govern matters of execution, interpretation and validity. Id. at 411. The Florida Supreme Court follows this rule. See Sturiano v. Brooks, 523 So.2d 1126, 1129-1130 (Fla.1988). The Sturiano Court recognized that the lex loci contractus rule is inflexible, but stated that the inflexibility was necessary to ensure stability in contracts. Under Sturiano, the knowledge that their contract will be governed by the laws of the place the contract is made, is imputed to the contracting parties, unless the contract provides to the contrary. The court reasoned that parties have a right to know what their agreement provides and reaffirmed that lex loci contractus is not an outdated doctrine. Id. at 1129-1130.

Appellant relies on cases that involve real property principles to avoid application of Sturiano and hence, to avoid application of Puerto Rican laws. However, appellant provides no authority to require a different result. It is well-settled that the laws of the situs of real and personal property generally govern the property's transfer, alienation and descent as well as the parties' capacities to contract with regard to that property. See Kyle v. Kyle, 128 So.2d 427 (Fla. 2d DCA 1961), cert. discharged, 139 So.2d 885 (Fla.1962). As a result, it follows that contracts involving the transfer of real property, or that attempt to create, transfer or somehow affect title to real property would be governed by the laws of the place where the property is situated. This is distinguishable from the instant scenario, however, where the antenuptial...