Estate of Stamper

• Decision Date: 19 August 1992
• Docket Number: No. 89-CA-0874,89-CA-0874
• Citation: 607 So.2d 1141
• Parties: ESTATE OF Susie Mae STAMPER, Deceased. Marshall Bernard STAMPER, Jr. v. Nellie Jo EDWARDS, Administratrix, Francis Williams, Marcus Williams, and Bob Williams.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

Page 1141

607 So.2d 1141

ESTATE OF Susie Mae STAMPER, Deceased.

Marshall Bernard STAMPER, Jr. v. Nellie Jo EDWARDS, Administratrix, Francis Williams, Marcus

Williams, and Bob Williams.

No. 89-CA-0874.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

Aug. 19, 1992.

Robert M. Logan, Gerald & Brand, Newton, for appellant.

John K. Keyes, Keyes & Rogers, Collins, H.D. Granberry, III, Steen Reynolds Dalehite & Currie, Jackson, for appellees.

Before HAWKINS, P.J., and PRATHER and ROBERTSON, JJ.

ROBERTSON, Justice, for the Court:

I.

We have before us another family fight over money, the testator's son claiming against his stepmother's estate and, by virtue of his father's will, demanding her financial remains. The will did so provide, in the form of a contingent remainder, but the Court below held the property at issue did not pass under the will. We affirm.

On cross-appeal, the stepmother's administratrix demands two certificates of deposit payable jointly to the stepmother and another, but without express survivorship rights, and, as well, a third certificate payable on death to another. Administratrix objects further to the Chancery Court's enforcement of a Totten Trust the stepmother created and funded with a fourth certificate of deposit for her stepson's benefit. Again, we affirm.

II.

A.

Marshall Steven Stamper, ("Marshall") ¹ late of Newton County, Mississippi, died testate on September 19, 1975, at the age of seventy-nine. Marshall left surviving him a widow, Susie Mae Stamper ("Susie Mae"), and a son by a prior marriage, Marshall Bernard Stamper ("Bernard"). Marshall left a will, made some four and a half years earlier, providing, in relevant part:

I will devise and bequeath unto my wife, Susie [Mae] Stamper, all of my property wherever found at my death and to include all personal, real and mixed property.... However, if any property remains at my wife wife's (sic) death, then I will and bequeath the remainder of the property left at her death to my son, Bernard Stamper.

Susie Mae Stamper presented the will to the Chancery Court of Newton County for probate in common form, and that Court appointed her as Executrix and issued letters testamentary. In due course, Susie Mae, as Executrix, filed her First and Final Accounting and Petition to Close the Estate. Therein Executrix described numerous assets she had found and identified particularly "certain jointly owned savings certificates and investments," to-wit:

First National Bank, Newton, Mississippi, savings account value--$10,521.61

Newton County Bank, Newton, Mississippi; savings account value--$110,348.70

Peoples Bank of Mississippi, N.A., Decatur, Mississippi, checking account value--$2,584.15

Bankers Trust Savings and Loan Association, savings account No. 697-532, value--$4,580.10

Bankers Trust Savings and Loan Association, savings account No. 631-329 value--$12,705.74.

It appears Susie Mae had with her own funds purchased the certificate representing the largest of these accounts--the $110,348.70 savings account with the Newton County Bank--and had placed it in the joint names of Susie Mae Stamper and Marshall Steven Stamper, though no express survivorship clause appears, to all of which we will return.

The handling of Marshall's estate appears to have bordered on the routine, and, on November 10, 1976, the Chancery Court entered its Final Decree Approving the First and Final Accounting and Closing the Estate. Below we revisit the exact wording of this decree. The point for the moment is that in November, 1976, Susie Mae Stamper took all, for Marshall's will left his entire estate to her, with full right and power to consume or dispose of all property she received thereunder. One of today's claims derives from the contingent remainder clause, that is, the language of the will which provides indubitably, if, at her death, Susie Mae Stamper had left any of the property she received under her late husband's will, or the proceeds or the increase thereof, that property passed to his son, Bernard.

B.

In October of 1975, shortly after Marshall's death, Susie Mae had taken the money and placed it in a series of certificates of deposit made out to herself and different co-holders or payable-on-death beneficiaries. Life proceeded apace and without event for several years after the closing of his estate in 1976. Susie Mae moved to Covington County. In time Susie Mae began to fail and was found to suffer Alzheimer's disease. On April 9, 1982, the Chancery Court of Covington County gathered Susie Mae's affairs into a conservatorship and appointed Nellie Jo Edwards, Susie Mae's niece, conservator of her aunt's person and estate. Conservator Edwards soon thereafter found it necessary to place Susie Mae in a nursing home in Hattiesburg where she remained until her death on December 16, 1985.

Susie Mae Stamper died intestate. Her conservator/niece, Nellie Jo Edwards, approached the Chancery Court of Covington County about the matter and was appointed Administratrix. The present appeal arises from this administration. It seems the conservatorship estate which was then closed out held at least six certificates of deposit. These CDs were renewals of the CDs Susie Mae had procured in October of 1975 and later renewed, as well as two others procured in 1981. The CDs aggregated some $142,546.04, and as before were made payable to Susie Mae Stamper and various co-holders or payable-on-death beneficiaries. All agree that the funds represented by these CDs constitute the remainder of the funds listed in Executrix Susie Mae Stamper's final accounting back in 1976, the principal of which is the $110,000.00-plus savings account at the Newton County Bank.

Only four certificates of deposit represent funds in issue. These are:

(1) Certificate No. 1004264 issued by the Newton County Bank, Newton, MS in the principal sum of $40,000.00 payable to "Herself or Mr. Francis Williams."

(2) Certificate No. 1004265 issued by the Newton County Bank, Newton, MS in the principal sum of $30,000.00 payable to "Herself or Marcus Williams."

(3) Certificate No. 1004266 issued by the Newton County Bank, Newton, MS in the principal sum of $40,000.00 payable to "Mrs. Susie Mae Stamper, Trustee for Bernard Marshall Stamper" (sic).

(4) Certificate No. 003-50023414 issued by Magnolia Federal Bank, Collins, MS in the principal sum of $10,000.00 payable to "Susie M. Stamper, Payable on Death to Bob Williams."

Bernard Stamper appeared in the matter of his stepmother's estate and invoked his father's will and claimed the funds represented by these certificates. Administratrix Edwards resisted, saying all such funds were the property of Susie Mae Stamper and should pass to her heirs at law. Francis Williams, Marcus Williams and Bob Williams appeared and each claimed the funds represented by the CD of which he or she was a co-holder or payee.

The matter went to trial where the parties first sought the proper reading of the proceedings had before the Chancery Court of Newton County back in 1976. No one questioned that Susie Mae Stamper emerged from those proceedings owning all funds reflected in the several joint accounts with unfettered power of consumption or alienation during her lifetime. The bone of contention was whether those funds had in fact and in law been a part of the estate of Marshall Steven Stamper, so that at Susie Mae's death their proceeds remaining in her hands might be controlled by Marshall's will.

In reviewing these 1976 proceedings, the Chancery Court of Covington County rejected Bernard's claim and held that the only property Marshall Steven Stamper held at his death, and which became a part of his estate and passed under his will, was

the Mississippi Chemical Corporation stock (25 shares), miscellaneous household furniture and personal property, and one 1970 Buick LeSabre automobile.

Because the jointly held accounts had never become a part of his father's estate, the contingent remainder clause in his father's will gave Bernard no rights in their proceeds remaining at his stepmother's death.

The Chancery Court then proceeded to the contest between Susie Mae's administratrix and the co-holder/payees on the renewal certificates of deposit, the originals of two of which Susie Mae Stamper had procured in October of 1975. The Court held, in relevant part:

(2) Certificate No. 1004266 issued by the Newton County Bank ... in the ... sum of $40,000.00 payable to "Mrs. Susie Mae Stamper, Trustee for Bernard Marshall Stamper", (sic) constitutes no part of the estate of Susie Mae Stamper for the reason that said certificate constitutes a Totten Trust, and not having been revoked during the lifetime of Susie Mae Stamper, the funds represented by said certificate is (sic) now the property of Bernard Marshall Stamper (sic).

(4) Certificate No. 1004264 issued by the Newton County Bank ... in the principal sum of $40,000.00 payable to "Herself or Mr. Francis Williams", does not constitute a portion of the estate of Susie Mae Stamper deceased for the reason that pursuant to Miss.Code Ann., Sec. 81-5-63 (Supp.1988), upon her death the funds represented by said certificate became vested in Mr. Francis Williams.

(5) Certificate No. 1004265 issued by the Newton County Bank ... in the principal sum of $30,000.00 payable to "Herself or Marcus Williams", does not constitute a portion of the estate of Susie Mae Stamper deceased for the reason that pursuant to Miss.Code Ann., Sec. 81-5-63 (Supp.1988), upon her death the funds represented by said certificate became vested in Marcus Williams.

(6) Certificate No. 003-50023414 issued by Magnolia Federal Bank ... in the principal sum of $10,000.00 payable to "Susie M. Stamper, Payable on Death to Bob Williams", became vested in Bob Williams upon the death of Susie Mae Stamper pursuant to Miss.Code Ann., Sec. 81-5-63 (Supp.1988).

III.

Bernard wants it all, now. He challenges the Chancery Court's holding that the contingent remainder clause in his father's will did...