IN RE ESTATE OF LUNDAHL, 2-01-0508.
| Decision Date | 16 July 2002 |
| Docket Number | No. 2-01-0508.,2-01-0508. |
| Citation | 773 N.E.2d 756,266 Ill.Dec. 21,332 Ill. App.3d 646 |
| Parties | In re ESTATE OF John R. LUNDAHL, Deceased (Elizabeth Gabel, Claimant-Appellee, v. Thomas D. Murray, Independent Ex'r of the Estate of John R. Lundahl, Appellant). |
| Court | United States Appellate Court of Illinois |
Thomas D. Murray, Jennifer B. Cromheecke, Bryce, Downey, Murray, Jensen & Mikus, LLC, Chicago, for Estate of John Lundahl, Thomas D. Murray, Independent Executor.
Matthew T. Caruso, Fitzsimmons, Roberts & Paine, Wheaton, for Elizabeth L. Gabel.
Thomas D. Murray, the independent executor of the estate of John R. Lundahl, deceased, appeals a judgment granting claimant, Elizabeth Gabel, relief against the Lundahl estate. Gabel's claim relies on a 1990 agreed order annulling Lundahl's marriage to Gabel and requiring the estate of Lundahl, who was then alive but disabled, to pay Gabel $1,700 month "for the balance of her natural life." The trial court ordered Murray to pay Gabel $1,700 monthly out of the estate as long as she lives or to purchase an equivalent annuity. Murray timely appealed.
On appeal, Murray argues that the judgment is erroneous because (1) Gabel's right to payments under the agreement ended when Lundahl died; (2) Gabel's claim is merely contingent and thus not a valid charge on the decedent's estate; (3) Gabel's claim is not ripe; and (4) recognizing Gabel's claim would keep the estate open unreasonably long. Because we agree with the first assertion, we reverse without considering Murray's other arguments.
We set out the pertinent facts. Lundahl executed a will in 1983 and a codicil in 1985. On August 22, 1988, Lundahl and Gabel were purportedly married in Florida. By 1989, Lundahl had become disabled and the court had appointed guardians for his person and his estate. That year, the plenary guardians of Lundahl's person and estate sued in Du Page County to invalidate the marriage. On June 13, 1990, the circuit court declared the marriage void, and "Lundahl and Associates" (the guardians of Lundahl's estate and person, Lundahl's two children, and the attorneys for these parties) and "Gabel and Associates" (Gabel and her attorneys) entered into the agreement on which Gabel now bases her claim. (It is helpful to keep in mind that, as Lundahl was alive at this time, the "Estate" the agreement references is not the testamentary estate that was created upon his death.)
The agreement recites that each party releases any possible claims against the other and that these mutual releases protect the "heirs, executors, * * * and agents of the individuals comprising Lundahl and Associates and Gabel and Associates." (Emphasis added.) Also, part of the consideration for the mutual releases is the guardians' desire "to preserve the assets of John R. Lundahl [and] his Estate." Paragraph 6(a) reads:
(Emphasis added.)
On June 12, 2000, Lundahl died. On August 4, 2000, the circuit court admitted Lundahl's will to probate and appointed Murray the independent executor of Lundahl's testamentary estate.
On February 26, 2001, Gabel filed her claim. She asserted that, while he lived, Lundahl paid Gabel $1,700 per month per the 1990 agreement; that Lundahl's contract survived his death; and that Lundahl's testamentary estate owed her $1,700 per month for the rest of her life.
Murray responded with several arguments. First, Gabel's claim was not ripe because, since Lundahl died, the estate had still paid Gabel $1,700 each month, albeit under protest. Second, Gabel's claim was contingent and thus impermissible under section 18-4 of the Probate Act of 1975(Act) (755 ILCS 5/18-4 (West 2000)), because any future payment vested only in the uncertain event that Gabel was still alive when it came due.
Murray argued third that the agreement did not entitle Gabel to any payments at all after Lundahl died. Murray reasoned that the payments were akin to maintenance. As such, they stopped at the payor's death unless the agreement plainly stated otherwise, which it did not. Murray observed in part that, under section 510(c) of the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act (Marriage Act) (750 ILCS 5/510(c) (West 2000)), the obligation to pay future maintenance ends when either party dies, unless the parties have agreed otherwise in writing.
Gabel replied that she could file her claim even if the estate had not yet refused to pay her, that the claim was not contingent because Lundahl's contractual obligation was fixed before he died, and that the parties did agree in 1990 that Gabel would receive payments even after Lundahl died. The trial court ruled that Gabel's right to monthly payments survived Lundahl's death and that her claim was not contingent under the Act. The court ordered Murray to pay Gabel $1,700 per month from the estate for the rest of Gabel's life or to purchase an annuity as provided in the 1990 agreement. Murray timely appealed.
On appeal, Murray advances several reasons for reversing the judgment in whole or in part. However, we need address only one of these arguments because it wholly disposes of the case. We agree with Murray that Gabel's entitlement to payments under the agreement ended with Lundahl's death. Therefore, because Gabel has no claim against the estate, we reverse the judgment completely.
Gabel has moved to strike part of the statement of facts in Murray's appellate brief. The first four paragraphs of this statement of facts lack any references to the record and merely reiterate unsupported and unsworn assertions that Murray made in a trial court brief. A party's statement of facts may not rely on matters outside the record and must refer appropriately to the pages of the record on appeal. See 188 Ill.2d R. 341(e)(6); In re Marriage of Drysch, 314 Ill.App.3d 640, 643, 247 Ill.Dec. 409, 732 N.E.2d 125 (2000). Therefore, we strike the first four paragraphs of Murray's statement of facts.
Turning to the merits, we agree with Murray that Gabel's right to monthly payments under the agreement ended with Lundahl's death. Therefore, after making the payment due June 1, 2000, the estate owed her nothing more. Because the 1990 agreement does not unmistakably extend Lundahl's financial obligation past his death, we presume that the parties intended that the monthly payments, which resemble periodic maintenance, would end when Lundahl died.
We do agree with Gabel that the Marriage Act does not control this case directly. Murray argues that, because the 1990 order awarded Gabel maintenance on the dissolution of her marriage to Lundahl, the court could not order that the payments continue to accrue after Lundahl died. See Ill.Rev.Stat.1989, ch. 40, par. 510(c); In re Marriage of Clarke, 125 Ill. App.3d 432, 436, 80 Ill.Dec. 629, 465 N.E.2d 975 (1984). However, the 1990 judgment did not dissolve a valid marriage but declared a purported marriage void. Also, the judgment did not force Lundahl's estate to support Gabel; the estate agreed to do so. Thus, the issue is not what a court could have required Lundahl's estate to do without the estate's consent but what the estate bound itself to do.
Because Gabel and Lundahl never validly married, the 1990 agreement is not a "marital settlement agreement" or a "maintenance agreement" in the strict sense. However, Gabel and Lundahl did have what, in practical terms, was a marriage, and the 1990 agreement settled disputes that arose from the invalidation of that relationship. Thus, although we have found no case quite akin to this one, we may look to opinions that consider whether a marital settlement agreement that requires periodic maintenance entitles the recipient to keep receiving maintenance even after the payor has died. Generally, courts do not impose such a burden on the late spouse's estate unless the agreement itself unmistakably demonstrates that the husband and wife intended this result.
Lennahan v. O'Keefe, 107 Ill. 620 (1883), appears to be the earliest Illinois opinion on point. Lennahan turned on the construction of a simple divorce decree with no settlement agreement. Nonetheless, the court set out the rule that courts later applied to agreements.
In Lennahan, the decree required the husband to pay the wife yearly alimony until further court order and made the obligation a lien on certain property. After the husband died, the circuit court, on application by his estate, held that the wife's right to alimony ended with the husband's death. The supreme court affirmed, rejecting the wife's claim that the divorce decree bound the husband's estate to pay her periodic alimony. Noting that the decree had made alimony modifiable, the court held:
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