In re Conservatorship Hume

• Decision Date: 29 June 2006
• Docket Number: No. G036141.,G036141.
• Citation: 44 Cal.Rptr.3d 906,140 Cal.App.4th 1385
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: CONSERVATORSHIP OF the Person and Estate of Laura Snow Auston HUME. John S. Williams, as Public Guardian, etc., Petitioner and Respondent, v. William Snow Hume, Objector and Appellant.

44 Cal.Rptr.3d 906

140 Cal.App.4th 1385

CONSERVATORSHIP OF the Person and Estate of Laura Snow Auston HUME John S. Williams, as Public Guardian, etc., Petitioner and Respondent, v. William Snow Hume, Objector and Appellant.

No. G036141.

Court of Appeal, Fourth District, Division 3.

June 29, 2006.

William Snow Hume, in pro. per., for Objector and Appellant.

Benjamin P. de Mayo, County Counsel, and James C. Harvey, Deputy County Counsel for Conservator and Respondent.

OPINION

SILLS, P.J.

I

We publish this case to make explicit what is otherwise implicit in the statute dealing with objections to inventories and accountings in conservatorship proceedings (Prob.Code, § 2614¹)—namely that the burden of proof is on the objector to the inventory and accounting, not on the conservator.

The facts are simple: The Orange County Public Guardian was appointed conservator of Laura Snow Auston Hume sometime prior to June 2004. In June 2004 the public guardian filed a final inventory and appraisal of Laura's estate. One of her children, William Snow Hume, filed objections.² A hearing was held, and the trial court entered an order overruling the objections and "accept[ing]" the inventory and appraisal "as is." William Snow Hume then filed this appeal.³ His primary contention is that the trial court erred in placing the burden of proof on him to show that the various appraisals contained in the inventory were erroneous, rather than placing the burden of proof on the conservator to show the validity of, in his words, the "contested valuations" in the inventory.⁴

The burden of proof is to law what inertia is to physics—a built-in bias in favor of the status quo. (See Evid.Code, § 500.⁵) That is, if you want the court to do something, you have to present evidence sufficient to overcome the state of affairs that would exist if the court did nothing. Of course, the hard work for courts presented with burden of proof issues is to ascertain the true nature of the status quo, or the baseline where the court starts. In regard to the present case, the text of the general governing statute, section 500 of the Evidence Code, merits explication. In its entirety, it reads: "Except as otherwise provided by law, a party has the burden of proof as to each fact the existence or nonexistence of which is essential to the claim for relief or defense that he is asserting." (Italics added.)

A review of the relevant Probate Code statutes governing inventory and accountings in conservatorship proceedings establishes that the status quo is the conservator's duty to file an inventory. Functionally, it is the objector who seeks to upset the status quo.

The conservator's duty to file accountings is set forth in sections 2610 and 2620. For our purposes, the key point is that these statutes impose a mandatory duty on the part of conservators (or guardians) to file accountings and inventories. The operative words are "shall file,"⁶ "shall take and subscribe to an oath that the inventory contains a true statement of all of the estate"⁷ and "shall present the accounting."⁸ In particular, the requirement of an oath as to the veracity of the inventory in all cases implies that, whatever further proceedings might occur, courts begin with the presumption of accuracy. The baseline, or status quo, is the fact of the filed, verified accountings, which will be operative unless something else happens.

That conclusion is confirmed by the structure and text of the statute governing objections to inventories and accountings, section 2614.⁹ In contrast to the mandatory duty on the part of the conservator to file inventories and accountings, section 2614 clearly makes filing objections a voluntary matter. Any interested party "may file written objections to any or all appraisals." (Italics added.) And while subdivision (c) requires the court to "determine the objections," it doesn't require it to "fix the true value of any asset to which objection has been filed." Rather, the court may do so. Finally, subdivision (c) of section 2614 contains some explicit disincentives against filing frivolous objections. In response to objections, the court has the power to "cause an independent appraisal" to be made, and if "the objection is rejected by the court" the court has the power ("may" again) to "assess the cost of any such additional appraisal" against the objecting party. By contrast, if the objection is well taken, the court has the power to impose the cost of the appraisal "at the expense of the estate," but in that situation the statute makes no provision to have that cost borne by the conservator.

The picture of the statute is thus remarkably consistent: There will be inventories and accountings—that is a given. Those inventories and accountings will be sufficient by themselves because they are required to be under oath and objections need not be filed at all. But, as a safety valve, interested parties may file objections. If those objections lead to an unnecessary appraisal, the court can impose the costs of any such unnecessary appraisal on the objector. If those objections lead to an, appraisal that proves necessary, the court has the authority to impose the expense on the estate. Thus, again, the court begins with the status quo of the verified accountings, and it is the objector who assumes the role of upsetting that status quo. We may conclude from this structure that the burden of proof in any hearing on objections is on the objector.

Now that we have seen what the probate statutes have to say, we return to Evidence Code section 500 to round out the picture. As would be expected, the general statute in the Evidence Code dovetails perfectly with the more specific statutes in the Probate Code. The operative words in Evidence Code section 500 are "essential to the claim for relief or defense." The conservator's accounting, because it is mandatory, can hardly be described as a claim for relief or defense. It is a duty, period. It is the objector who seeks relief by trying to change the result that would normally obtain without intervention, which would be acceptance of the accounting. While one can speculate as to the pros and cons of a statutory regime that imposes the burden of proof on a party objecting to a conservator's accounting,¹⁰ we cannot escape the conclusion that that is indeed the statutory regime, and the trial court's approach was thus in accord with it.

William Snow Hume's argument in favor of putting the burden on the conservator centers on sections 1060 through 1064 of the Probate Code (generally governing all accounts to be filed with the court)¹¹ and in particular section 1064, which contemplates a petition for approval of an account.¹² (Interestingly enough, though, the statute relaxes the necessity of filing a formal petition, deeming the very fact of filing an account to include a petition for approval.¹³) William Snow Hume reasons that a petition for approval of an account necessarily contemplates confirmation of any inventory (a point which appears to be sound), and thus, as petitioner, the conservator should bear the burden of proof in any proceedings contesting an inventory.

The flaw in the argument is that it conflates two different contexts. For sake of argument, it may be the case that a person filing an account bears the burden of making at least a prima facie case of compliance with the various requirements for an account set forth in sections 1061 through 1063. (For example, is the account statutorily deficient because it fails to contain a summary showing, if applicable, any "net loss from trade or business"? (See section 1061, subd. (a)(8).)) And if this case involved objections to the accounts presented by the public guardian based on deficiencies in the accounts under sections 1061 through 1063, William Snow Hume might indeed have a point. (We do not say yea or nay on this precise issue, just maybe.)

But this case involves another context, one that is specifically governed by section 2614,¹⁴ in which, as we have seen, the status quo is the already-filed appraisal. (Remember the requirement in the statute that any objections be filed within 30 days of the filing of the inventory and appraisal.) In that context, litigants are afforded the opportunity to contest the appraisal as objectors, but (to be repetitive), if they don't object, the appraisal is the default result. And in fact that conclusion is underscored by the provision in section 1064, subdivision (b), which deems the filing of any account to include a petition for its approval. That confirms the paradigm of the statutes in which, at least from the vantage point of the objector proceeding under section 2614 as to appraisals of property, the starting point (the status quo) is the account already filed.

William Snow Hume also directs our attention to two other statutes, sections 1044 and 8906. Section 1044 is merely one sentence: "The petitioner or other party affirming is the plaintiff and the party objecting or responding is the defendant." The statute confirms our analysis: Courts construing the statute's predecessors have looked at it functionally, assigning the role of "plaintiff" to the party seeking to upset the status quo. (See Estate of J.M. Wooten (1880) 56 Cal. 322, 325 [assigning role of "plaintiff" to guardian of minor child who sought revocation of letters of administration then held by half brother]; Slosberg v. Municipal Court of the City of Los Angeles (1950) 101 Cal.App.2d 238, 241, 225 P.2d 312 [assigning role of plaintiff to New York resident who initiated OSC to include certain clothing in inventory, in part based on predecessor to section 1044 and in part because she "set in motion the particular proceeding involved"].)

Section 8906, subdivision (d), explicitly states that as regards appraisals of property in conjunction with the final distribution of a decedent's estate, the burden of proof is on the person objecting to the...