Field v. Hughes-Birch (In re Hughes-Birch)

• Citation: 499 B.R. 134
• Decision Date: 09 October 2013
• Docket Number: Bankruptcy No. 12–40781–JNF.,Adversary No. 12–4049.
• Parties: In re Stacey HUGHES–BIRCH, Debtor. Marshall L. Field, Administrator c/t/a of the Estate of Barbara Tighe, Plaintiff v. Stacey Hughes–Birch, Defendant.
• Court: United States Bankruptcy Courts. First Circuit. U.S. Bankruptcy Court — District of Massachusetts

499 B.R. 134

In re Stacey HUGHES–BIRCH, Debtor.
Marshall L. Field, Administrator c/t/a of the Estate of Barbara Tighe, Plaintiff
v.
Stacey Hughes–Birch, Defendant.

Bankruptcy No. 12–40781–JNF.
Adversary No. 12–4049.

United States Bankruptcy Court,
D. Massachusetts.

Oct. 9, 2013.

[499 B.R. 136]

William N Hurley, Lowell, MA, for Plaintiff.

Theodore H. Goguen, Jr., Cambridge, MA, for Defendant.

MEMORANDUM
JOAN N. FEENEY, Bankruptcy Judge.
I. INTRODUCTION

The matter before the Court is the “Amended Complaint of Marshall L. Field, Administrator C/T/A of the Estate of Barbara B. Tighe, for Determination Excepting Judgment Debt from Dischargeability” filed by Marshall L. Field (“Field” or the “Administrator”), in his capacity as an administrator of the Probate Estate of Barbara B. Tighe (“Mrs. Tighe” or the “Estate”) against Stacey Hughes–Birch (the

[499 B.R. 137]

“Debtor”). Field maintains that the Debtor willfully and maliciously usurped real estate belonging to the Estate resulting in a number of contempt judgments issued against her by the Essex County Probate and Family Court Department of the Trial Court (the “Probate Court”). He seeks an exception from discharge of the debt owed to the Estate arising from the judgments pursuant to 11 U.S.C. § 523(a)(6). The Court conducted a trial on July 16, 2013 at which two witnesses, the Debtor and Field, testified and nine exhibits were introduced into evidence. Following the trial, both parties filed post-trial briefs.

The debt owed to the Estate arises from litigation spanning more than six years and involving the filing of hundreds of documents in the Probate Court as well as in numerous other trial and appellate courts concerning the scope of a devise to the Debtor of certain portions of real property under Mrs. Tighe's will. The issue presented is whether the debt owed to the Estate was caused by the Debtor's willful and malicious injury and thus should be excepted from discharge.

This Court has jurisdiction over this matter pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1334(a) and (b) and the order of reference from the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. This is a core proceeding pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 157(b)(2)(I). The Court now makes the following findings of fact and conclusions of law pursuant to Fed. R. Bankr.P. 7052.

II. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

The Debtor filed a voluntary petition under Chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code on March 1, 2012. On Schedule A—Real Property, she listed real property located at “95 Lacy Street, North Andover, MA (as inherited per Probate Court order)” with a value of $350,000 unencumbered by any liens. On Schedule C—Property Claimed as Exempt, the Debtor listed the Lacy Street property as exempt pursuant to the Massachusetts homestead statute, Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 188, § 1, in the amount of $500,000. On Schedule F—Creditors Holding Unsecured Nonpriority Claims, the Debtor listed a single creditor, namely Field, as “Executor of the Estate of Barbara Tighe” as the holder of a disputed claim for $150,000. She identified William N. Hurley, Esq., as the “Assignee or other notification for: Marshall L. Field.”

On May 2, 2012, Field, as Administrator, filed an Objection to the Debtor's claimed homestead exemption. Field asserted that the Debtor's homestead declaration, which was recorded on August 19, 2011 in the Northern Essex District Registry of Deeds, was defective because the source of the Debtor's title to the Property was identified as a “Deed” recorded in the Northern Essex District Registry of Deeds at Book 12574, Page 275, when, in fact, no deed had been recorded at that book and page because her interest in the Lacy Street property was derived only from Mrs. Tighe's Estate. The Debtor filed a response, and the Court conducted a hearing on July 10, 2012. The Court overruled Field's Objection by Order dated August 20, 2012, ruling that a deed is not required to establish the Debtor's interest in the Lacy Street property under the Massachusetts homestead statute.

On May 2, 2012, Field also filed a timely complaint for a determination of the nondischargeability of the debt owed to the Estate pursuant to 11 U.S.C. § 523(a)(6). He filed an amended complaint (the “Complaint”) the following day which was the subject of the July 16, 2013 trial. Field later filed a Second Amended Complaint on June 4, 2012, without leave of Court, in which he purported to add a claim for

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denial of the Debtor's discharge pursuant to 11 U.S.C. § 727(a)(2)(A). The Debtor filed a Motion to Strike that count which the Court allowed on August 3, 2012. On June 13, 2012, Field, on behalf of the Estate, timely filed a proof of claim asserting a general unsecured claim for $187,050 based upon “Judgment 3/23/10 Essex Probate Ct. Docket 04E0083.”

The Court issued a Pretrial Order on August 6, 2012 requiring, among other things, that the parties file a Joint Pretrial Memorandum, which they did on December 3, 2012. In the Joint Pretrial Memorandum, the Debtor identified a number of proposed exhibits she planned to introduce at trial, including copies of Mrs. Tighe's will and codicils as well as pleadings and transcripts of proceedings previously litigated in the Probate Court, as well as other courts, in the protracted litigation between the Estate and the Debtor. Under the heading “Issues of Fact Which Remain to be Litigated,” the Debtor included factual issues concerning the scope of the devise to her under Mrs. Tighe's will as well as issues relating to the conduct of Field as Administrator of the Estate.

On July 15, 2013, Field filed a Motion in Limine in which he asserted that all prepetition actions between the parties concerning Mrs. Tighe's devise to the Debtor had been resolved by judgments which were affirmed on appeal, and that the Debtor's plans to proffer certain exhibits and testimony at trial, as set forth in the Joint Pretrial Memorandum, were an attempt to impermissibly relitigate issues resolved by the Probate Court and an attempt to collaterally attack its final orders. The Court heard the Motion in Limine on July 16, 2013, immediately prior to the trial. The Court ruled that the various judgments of the Probate Court which set forth, among other things, the amount of land inherited by the Debtor from Mrs. Tighe, the Debtor's liability for contempt and the amount of the debt owed by her to the Estate were final orders and were binding on this Court. The Court prohibited the Debtor from introducing any evidence to challenge those judgments under principles of collateral estoppel, see Grogan v. Garner, 498 U.S. 279, 111 S.Ct. 654, 112 L.Ed.2d 755 (1991), the Full Faith and Credit Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1738, and the Rooker–Feldman doctrine. The sole issue for trial, the Court ruled, was whether the debt owed to the Estate, as determined by the Probate Court, should be excepted from discharge pursuant to 11 U.S.C. § 523(a)(6). The Court also reiterated its dismissal of the count for denial of the Debtor's discharge contained in the second amended complaint as it was “incomprehensible, poorly pled and failed to state a claim under § 727(a)(2)(A).”

III. FACTS ADDUCED AT TRIAL

To establish the debt owed to the Estate, Field introduced a number of judgments, memoranda and orders issued by the Probate Court between January 29, 2004 and May 27, 2010. The specific details of the protracted litigation, discussed below, were extracted from those documents, as supplemented by the testimony of the witnesses at trial.

Mrs. Tighe died on November 6, 2002. At the time of her death, she owned approximately eleven (11) acres of land containing at least one dwelling house, barn(s), sheds, stables and a riding ring located on Lacy Street in North Andover, Massachusetts (the “Property”) which she operated as a farm. The Debtor first met Mrs. Tighe in 1965, when she was five years old, through her father who boarded horses on the Property. The Debtor worked for Mrs. Tighe while she was growing up, doing farm work and taking care of horses. The Debtor graduated

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from high school, attended college for two years, and worked for an insurance company for twenty years while continuing to work with horses on Mrs. Tighe's farm. She helped Mrs. Tighe, who had two children, and her companion, Eddie, when they both became ill and disabled in the late 1990s, and she did so without compensation. In or around 2001, Mrs. Tighe approached the Debtor about living in her house and taking control of the farm after she died, explaining that she did not wish to leave the Property to her children who would not “keep it a farm.”

Mrs. Tighe died on November 6, 2002, and Eddie passed away a week later. Mrs. Tighe left a Last Will and Testament dated September 14, 1999, a Codicil dated October 12, 2000 and a Second Codicil dated September 20, 2002 which was executed six weeks prior to Mrs. Tighe's death (hereinafter, the “Will”). Following a will contest initiated by Mrs. Tighe's daughter, the Will was admitted to Probate in an action in the Probate Court entitled In re Estate of Barbara B. Tighe, Docket No. 02P2876EP1 (the “Will Contest”).

Pursuant to a Judgment issued by the Probate Court on January 29, 2004 (Manzi, J.) Field and Edward F. Finnegan (“Mr. Finnegan”), now deceased, were appointed as Co–Administrators of the Will (jointly, the “Administrators”). Admission of the Will into probate effected a devise to the Debtor of:

... that certain parcel of real estate now occupied by me as my residence, with the barn and other appurtenances and improvements attached in connection therewith, located in the Town of North Andover and situated on Lacy Street, ... and being a portion of that land described in a certain Deed dated December 21, 1967 ... intending to include no less than three (3) acres of land, upon which my home with attached barn is located and which parcel shall also include the hill behind such home with barn. It is my intention to have this parcel...