IN RE ESTATE OF DANIEL
| Decision Date | 27 March 2003 |
| Citation | 819 A.2d 968 |
| Parties | In re ESTATE OF Daniel B. DELANEY. Edna J. Valentine, Appellant, v. Lawrence M. Elliott, Appellee. Edna J. Valentine, Appellant, v. Lawrence M. Elliott, Appellee. Lawrence M. Elliott and R. Eliot Rosen, Appellants, v. Christopher G. Hoge, Appellee. Christopher G. Hoge, Appellant, v. Edna J. Valentine, Appellee. Lawrence M. Elliott, Appellant, v. Christopher G. Hoge, Appellee. |
| Court | D.C. Court of Appeals |
Walter T. Charlton for appellant/appellee Valentine.
Jason P. Green for appellant/appellee Elliott and appellee Rosen. William J. Bethune for appellant/appellee Hoge.
Before FARRELL and WASHINGTON, Associate Judges, and BELSON, Senior Judge.
These fourteen consolidated appeals arise out of the probate proceedings for the estate of Daniel B. Delaney (decedent). The central issues to be decided are: (1) whether a challenge to the will and a claim for status as common law wife were properly dismissed as time-barred; (2) whether certain disputed accounts were correctly determined to be part of the estate; (3) whether compensation was properly denied to the original personal representative and reduced for tax counsel to the estate; (4) whether attorneys' fees were properly denied to the estate and the residuary beneficiaries; and (5) whether the original personal representative was properly removed. We affirm all the challenged orders and judgments.
Since these appeals involve a multitude of facts not all of which are pertinent to every appeal, we begin with a brief exposition of the underlying facts. We will provide the salient facts specific to each appeal as we take up the various appeals in turn.
Mr. Delaney died on August 6, 1993, leaving behind a valuable estate; a long-time acquaintance, Edna J. Valentine, who described herself as Delaney's companion, and later in the course of litigation described herself as his common law wife; and several cousins, including Lawrence M. Elliott. Among Mr. Delaney's effects at the time of his death was a sizable account with a Virginia office of Merrill Lynch that appeared to be jointly held with Valentine.
A will, signed by Delaney on July 18, 1993 ("July 18 will") and naming Valentine as sole beneficiary, was filed shortly after Delaney's death with the Register of Wills of the District of Columbia. Elliott, designated by the will to serve as executor, mailed notice of his appointment as personal representative to Valentine on August 25, 1993, and the Register of Wills admitted the July 18 will to probate on September 9, 1993.
In March of 1994, the personal representative discovered a later will, dated July 31, 1993, ("July 31 will"or "after-discovered will") and filed it with the Register of Wills. Valentine was to receive a relatively minor cash bequest under the July 31 will, with the bulk of the estate going to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ("NAACP"), the American Heart Association, and two other charities (collectively "residuary beneficiaries").
The July 31 will named Lawrence M. Elliott (original personal representative) as Executor, as had the July 18 will. After filing the July 31 will, Elliott published the requisite notice of after-discovered will and notice of appointment and mailed a copy of the notice (along with a form known as General Information to Heirs and Legatees) to all those named in the July 31 will, including Valentine. At the time, Elliott was unaware of several other relatives of Delaney, and so did not mail the notice or general information forms to them until much later. Valentine received her copy of the notice on March 28, 1994. The July 31 will was admitted to probate by order dated April 4, 1994, which vacated that portion of the earlier order which had admitted the July 18 will to probate. In re Estate of Delaney, ADM 1809-93.
In August of 1997, Valentine learned "quite by accident" that Delaney had living cousins who were potential heirs. On August 13, 1997, Valentine brought this to the attention of the trial court. The trial court then stayed the case to give the newly-discovered relatives an opportunity to object to the wills. Elliott duly notified the cousins and, in September of 1997, the cousins filed a complaint to contest the validity of both wills. Patton v. Elliott, ADM 1809-93, order dated September 3, 1998. After being granted leave to intervene in the cousins' will contest, the NAACP located and deposed two of the witnesses to the July 31 will. Based on their testimony, the NAACP moved for summary judgment on the issue of the validity of the July 31 will. The trial court (Christian, J.) granted the motion in an order entered September 8, 1998, which was not appealed.
Valentine took this appeal from the trial court's order dated June 27, 1997, barring her challenges to the will as time-barred by the probate statute. D.C.Code, Title 20, ?? 20-101 through 20-1305 (1980, as amended in 1995, 1996, and 1997). Valentine is the appellant, and Elliott (personal representative at the time of the appeal) is the appellee.
As Valentine later explained in a deposition, when she received her notice of the after-discovered will in March of 1994, she read the will and was immediately suspicious as to its authenticity. She felt this way because she thought Delaney was so ill that he was unable to write on the day the will was purportedly signed, and because she felt that Delaney "would never have said [what was said in the will] about me." Valentine did not act on her suspicions, however, until much later.
In June of 1995, Elliott brought a subsidiary proceeding against Valentine within the probate proceeding to recover the jointly-registered accounts as assets of the estate, claiming that the accounts were not joint accounts but simply convenience accounts.1 Elliott v. Valentine, ADM 1809-93. On February 1, 1996, almost two years after receiving the notice as to the July 31 will, Valentine filed an answer in Elliott v. Valentine which "assert[ed]," inter alia, that the will was "a forgery and a fraud." This is the only allegation made of fraud and/or forgery in Valentine's answer.
Sometime in late 1996 or early 1997, Valentine hired a handwriting expert to examine Delaney's signatures on both the July 18 will and the July 31 will. The expert told Valentine that both signatures were forged. Valentine then filed, in Elliott v. Valentine, a motion for leave to file amending and dispositive motions, including, inter alia, a motion to vacate probate order based on new evidence of fraud and common law marriage. She filed this motion on March 17, 1997, almost three years after she received the notice of appointment. In this filing, Valentine made extensive claims of forgery regarding the July 31 will. By order dated March 31, 1997, the court rejected Valentine's challenge to the July 31 will as time-barred. In the order, the court noted that in oral argument held on January 23, 1997, in Elliott v. Valentine, as well as in the February 1, 1996, answer Valentine filed in that case, Valentine challenged the July 31 will as a forgery and fraudulent.
Notwithstanding the court's ruling of March 31, 1997, Valentine filed, on April 7, 1997, a complaint in the nature of a caveat attacking the validity of both the July 18 will and the July 31 will on the grounds of fraud and/or forgery. She also realleged that she was decedent's common law wife. By order entered June 27, 1997, the trial court dismissed Valentine's renewed claims of forgery and her claim to be decedent's common law wife as timebarred under D.C.Code ? 20-903(a)(1) (1981).2 Valentine took appeal No. 97-PR-1217 from this order; Elliott (personal representative at the time of the appeal) is the appellee.
Although appeal No. 97-PR-1217 may have been premature when filed,3 a final judgment was entered in Elliott v. Valentine on October 20, 1999. This had the effect of ripening the instant appeal thereby giving this court jurisdiction to act because the trial court had entered a final judgment on the entire case. Super. Ct. Civ. R. 54; West v. Morris, 711 A.2d 1269, 1271 (D.C.1998); Dyer v. William S. Bergman & Assocs., Inc., 635 A.2d 1285, 1286-87 (D.C.1993); Robinson v. Howard Univ., 455 A.2d 1363, 1366 (D.C.1983).
The trial court's ruling rejecting appellant Valentine's challenge to the will as time-barred constituted an adjudication of that issue. Although her challenge to the July 31 will arose in the context of Elliott v. Valentine, it was properly a part of In re Estate of Delaney because the issue in Elliott v. Valentine concerned the nature of the jointly-registered accounts. The validity of the July 31 will had no bearing on the nature of those accounts. Had Valentine lodged her complaint against the July 31 will within the probate proceeding itself (In re Estate of Delaney), rather than in a subsidiary proceeding, the order denying her caveat to the will would have functioned as a summary judgment that the July 31 will was properly admitted to probate.
We make an independent, de novo review of the record in deciding appeals from summary judgment. See, e.g., In re Burleson, 738 A.2d 1199, 1203-04 (D.C.1999); Knight v. Furlow, 553 A.2d 1232, 1233 (D.C.1989). In so doing, we use the trial court's standard of review for motions for summary judgment. Knight, supra, 553 A.2d at 1233. Summary judgment is appropriate when there is no genuine issue as to a material fact and the movant is entitled to a ruling as a matter of law on the issue in question. Super. Ct. Civ. R. 56(c). The court must view the record in the light most favorable to the party...
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