Estate of Spaits, In re, 82-405

• Decision Date: 15 August 1983
• Docket Number: No. 82-405,82-405
• Citation: 117 Ill.App.3d 142,453 N.E.2d 39,72 Ill.Dec. 734
• Parties: , 72 Ill.Dec. 734 In re The ESTATE OF Nellie Pearl SPAITS, Deceased, Flossie KINSEL, Earl Dean Kirk, William Edward Kirk, Donald Earl Kirk, Barbara Eloise Woods, Deborah Lynn Griffith, Janet Sue Tutor and Bettyjo M. Kirk, Petitioners-Appellants, v. Hazel Darlene LeFEVER, Respondent-Appellee, and The First National Bank in Newton, Illinois, Appellee.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

Page 39

453 N.E.2d 39

117 Ill.App.3d 142, 72 Ill.Dec. 734

In re The ESTATE OF Nellie Pearl SPAITS, Deceased,

Flossie KINSEL, Earl Dean Kirk, William Edward Kirk, Donald

Earl Kirk, Barbara Eloise Woods, Deborah Lynn

Griffith, Janet Sue Tutor and Bettyjo M.

Kirk, Petitioners-Appellants, v. Hazel Darlene LeFEVER, Respondent-Appellee, and The First National Bank in Newton, Illinois, Appellee.

No. 82-405.

Appellate Court of Illinois,

Fifth District.

Aug. 15, 1983.

Baird, Latendresse, McCarthy & Rowden, Decatur, for petitioners-appellants.

Lawrence Eaton, Eaton, Eaton & Tomaw, Newton, for Hazel Darlene LeFever.

Daniel E. Hartigan, Leffler & Hartigan, Newton, for First Nat. Bank in Newton, Ill.

JONES, Justice:

The petitioners appeal from an order of the circuit court of Jasper County that denied their motion to file an amended petition to contest a will and granted the executor's motion to dismiss the petition to contest the will. The only issue on appeal is whether the failure to make the executor of an estate a party to a will contest proceeding prior to the expiration of the statutory six-month period in which an action may be commenced to contest the admission of a will to probate, as provided by section 8-1 of the Probate Act of 1975 (Ill.Rev.Stat.1981, ch. 110 1/2, par. 8-1), precludes making the executor a party to the proceeding.

The facts of this case are not in dispute. Nellie Pearl Spaits died testate on September 11, 1981. The will named her husband, Harold Spaits, as executor and further provided that if he should predecease her, the First National Bank of Newton, Illinois (Bank), should be appointed as the alternate executor. Harold Spaits had died on November 14, 1980. On September 29, 1981, a petition for probate of decedent's will and for letters testamentary was filed. On September 29, 1981, the court entered an order that admitted the will to probate and appointed the Bank as the executor.

On March 26, 1982, petitioners filed their petition to contest the will. The petition did not refer to the executor. On April 12, 1982, certificate of notice of service of the petition to contest decedent's will was filed. The Bank was not named in the notice or the certificate of service of notice. On May 11, 1982, the Bank filed a limited and special appearance for the purpose of objecting to the jurisdiction of the court over the executor in the will contest proceeding. On the same date the Bank filed a motion to dismiss the petition to contest the will on the basis that the Bank was not made a party to the will contest as required by Illinois Revised Statutes 1979, ch. 110 1/2, par. 8-2(a).

On June 1, 1982, petitioners filed a motion for leave to file an amended petition to contest the will in which petitioners admitted that the original petition to contest the will did not identify the legal representative of the estate and further admitted that the legal representative was not mailed a notice of the petition to contest the will. The motion alleged, however, that a copy of the petition was personally served on counsel for the Bank on March 26, 1982. On June 3, 1982, the Bank filed an objection to petitioners' motion. On June 8, 1982, a hearing was held on the motion. On June 22, 1982, the court entered an order granting the motion to dismiss the petition to contest the will and denying contestants' motion for leave to file an amended petition to contest the will that included the executor as a party-defendant. Petitioners appeal from these orders.

Section 8-1(a) of the Probate Act of 1975 (Ill.Rev.Stat.1981, ch. 110 1/2, par. 8-1(a)) provides, in pertinent part:

"Within 6 months after the admission to probate of a domestic will in accordance with the provisions of Section 6-4, or of a foreign will in accordance with the provisions of Article VII, any interested person may file a petition in the proceeding for the administration of the testator's estate or, if no letters were issued, in the court in which the will was admitted to probate, to contest the validity of the will. The representative, if any, and all heirs and legatees of the testator must be made parties to the proceeding and the petition must state, if known, their names and post office addresses and whether any of them is a minor or disabled person."

If the appellants are to prevail, it must be on the basis of the cases of Nupnau v. Hink (1965), 33 Ill.2d 285, 211 N.E.2d 379, and In re Estate of Mears (1982), 110 Ill.App.3d 1133, 66 Ill.Dec. 606, 443 N.E.2d 289. Those cases hold that jurisdiction of the court in a will contest suit is invoked by the filing of the complaint within the statutory period, nine months in Nupnau and six months in Mears. "While it is necessary to make parties all persons having an interest therein," the court said in Nupnau, "this is not a condition precedent to the attaching of jurisdiction." But in holding that omitted necessary parties could be added as party-defendants after the expiration of the statutory period to begin a suit to contest the will, the court stated:

"The requirement of section 91, relating to parties, is separate and distinct and does not purport to add to the steps which section 90 says must be taken within nine months." 33 Ill.2d 285, 288, 211 N.E.2d 379, 381. The court in Nupnau relied on Stephens v. Collison (1911),

249 Ill. 225, 94 N.E. 664, and Fleshner v. Copeland (1958), 13 Ill.2d 72, 147 N.E.2d 329. In Stephens the executor had not been named a party-defendant as such, but the person named as executor had been named a party-defendant in his individual capacity. In Fleshner the executor was named as a party-defendant in the body of the complaint but not in the caption or introductory paragraph.

Subsequent to the decision in the Nupnau case the supreme court decided Ruffing v. Glissendorf (1968), 41 Ill.2d 412, 243 N.E.2d 236. The stated issue was whether the nine-month, now six-month, period of limitation under section 90 of the Probate Act now section 8-1(a), for filing a petition to contest the admission of a will to probate operated as a jurisdictional limitation or only as a statute of limitation. The issue was presented when the contestants did not file a petition to contest within nine months as required by section 90 but, instead, filed their petition under section 72 of the Civil Practice Act (Ill.Rev.Stat. 1965, ch. 110, par. 72). The court noted that since Luther v. Luther (1887), 122 Ill. 558, 13 N.E. 166, it had been held in many cases that the time limitation of the statute (governing will contests) was not a statute of limitations but was a jurisdictional limitation. Accordingly, the time limitation was not tolled by fraudulent concealment of the cause of action. Petitioners conceded that that had been the law but argued that because of the adoption of the new Judicial Article of the Illinois Constitution, effective January 1, 1964, the rule of the Luther case had been changed. The petitioners reasoned that prior to the new Judicial Article the probate court had jurisdiction of all probate matters while the circuit court had original jurisdiction of all causes in law and equity. They concluded that because the probate court had been abolished as a separate judicial entity by the new Judicial Article and the circuit court now had unlimited original jurisdiction of all justiciable matters, the limitation period of section 90 was no longer a jurisdictional limitation but would now be a statute of limitation that would be tolled by fraud. The petitioners' argument was rejected, the court stating:

"The theory of the Luther case, which rejected the contention that the time limitation was an ordinary statute of limitations and held it to be a jurisdictional limitation, was as follows: a will contest as provided by the statute was unknown to the common law, and therefore jurisdiction to contest the validity of a will is derived exclusively from the statute and such jurisdiction can only be exercised in the mode and under the limitations prescribed by the statute[.] * * * Thus, the holding of Luther was not based on the fact that the probate court was a separate judicial entity with original jurisdiction in probate matters, and the abolition of that court as a separate entity and the grant of unlimited original jurisdiction of all justiciable matters to the circuit court have not ipso facto changed the consistent construction that has been given to section 90 and its predecessors." 41 Ill.2d 412, 416-17-18, 243 N.E.2d 236, 238-39.

The Ruffing case establishes beyond doubt that the time limitation provided in the statute authorizing a will contest suit is jurisdictional. We can perceive no reason why the specifications as to parties made in the same statute could be regarded in any way other than as jurisdictional. This perception is engendered by two amendments to the statutes governing the commencement of will contests which have been enacted by the legislature subsequent to the Nupnau case, and they are significant to the issue in this case. The first amendment, effective January 1, 1976, changed sections 90 and 91 of the Probate Act to sections 8-1 and 8-2, respectively, of the Probate Act of 1975 (Ill.Rev.Stat.1975, ch. 110 1/2, par. 1-1 et seq.) Section 8-2 was amended to provide that the personal representative and all heirs and legatees of the testator must be made a party to the proceeding. The antecedent statutes had provided only that the personal representative, the heirs and legatees shall be made parties. Thus, the legislature indicated imperatively that it is necessary to join all parties. The second amendment became effective January 1, 1980. It consolidated the antecedent sections of the statute governing will contests into one section, 8-1, consisting of five sub-sections, under the single heading, "Contest of Admission of Will to Probate." The legislature thus addressed the concern in Nupnau that "[t]he requirement of section 91,...