In re Guardianship, Conservatorship of Durand, A13–1415.

• Decision Date: 18 February 2015
• Docket Number: No. A13–1415.,A13–1415.
• Citation: 859 N.W.2d 780
• Parties: In re GUARDIANSHIP and CONSERVATORSHIP OF Helen Louise DURAND, Ward/Protected Person.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

859 N.W.2d 780

In re GUARDIANSHIP and CONSERVATORSHIP OF Helen Louise DURAND, Ward/Protected Person.

No. A13–1415.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Feb. 18, 2015.

Luther M. Amundson, Maser Amundson Boggio & Hendricks, P.A., Minneapolis, Minnesota, for appellant Alternative Decision Makers, Inc.

Lynn Krebes–Lufkin, Boston, Massachusetts, pro se personal representative of the estate of William F. Krebes, respondent.

Considered and decided by the court without oral argument.

OPINION

LILLEHAUG, Justice.

Helen Durand survived her spouse, but was placed under a conservatorship shortly after his death. Minnesota Statutes § 524.2–212 (2014) required her conservator, before filing for Durand's elective share in her deceased husband's probate proceeding, to obtain a court order authorizing the filing. The district court declared that this requirement violated the Minnesota Constitution's guarantee of equal protection. The court of appeals disagreed and reversed. Because the statute has a rational basis, we affirm the court of appeals.

I.

William Krebes died on October 14, 2009, survived by his wife Helen Durand. Lynn Krebes–Lufkin, Krebes's daughter, was appointed as personal representative of Krebes's estate by the Dakota County Probate Court.

In early 2010 two of Durand's children, Paul Durand and Mary Jo Kattar, petitioned the Hennepin County District Court for the appointment of a conservator for their mother. The petition stated that Durand needed a conservator because she lacked “the clarity of mind to communicate with an attorney and make informed decisions about what is happening in the [Dakota County] probate case.”

The Hennepin County District Court agreed and appointed Alternate Decision Makers, Inc. (“ADMI”) as emergency conservator of Durand's estate, with powers limited to matters related to the Dakota County probate proceeding. The district court found that Durand lacked “the capacity to make decisions in her own best interest relative to her late husband's estate ... and specifically that she lacks the ability to understand legal advice, to work with an attorney in her own best interest and to make a decision based upon the advice of an attorney.” Several months later, finding that Durand was vulnerable to potential financial exploitation, the district court appointed ADMI as general conservator.¹

ADMI petitioned the Hennepin County District Court for authorization to file for Durand's elective share in the Dakota County probate proceeding. The Hennepin County District Court granted the petition. ADMI then filed an elective share petition on Durand's behalf in the Dakota County Probate Court. But Krebes–Lufkin, acting as personal representative of Krebes's estate, moved the Hennepin County District Court to vacate its order.²

Krebes–Lufkin argued that: (1) she did not receive proper notice of ADMI's petition for authorization; and (2) the Hennepin County court had not found that the exercise of the right of election was necessary to provide adequate support for Durand, a “protected person” under a conservatorship, as required by Minn.Stat. § 524.2–212. The Hennepin County District Court granted the motion to vacate and ordered an evidentiary hearing on ADMI's petition.

Prior to the evidentiary hearing, ADMI moved for summary judgment. ADMI argued that Minn.Stat. § 524.2–212 violated Durand's equal protection rights because “protected persons” are “treated differently than similarly situated spouses without such infirmities.” ADMI argued that if Durand were not a protected person under the statute, “her right to an election would be automatic pursuant to Minn.Stat. § 524.2–202.” Krebes–Lufkin responded that the rational purpose of the statute was “to ensure that the incapacitated surviving spouse's needs are provided [for] while simultaneously protecting the testamentary wishes of the decedent by ensuring that the conservator does not divert the decedent's assets to the heirs of the protected person.”

Concluding that the statute violated the Minnesota Constitution's equal protection guarantee, the district court granted ADMI's motion for summary judgment. The court examined the elective share statute under Minnesota's rational basis test. First, the court held that “[w]hen it comes to choosing whether to elect against a will, there is no reasonable justification for treating spouses acting through conservators differently from spouses acting on their own.” Second, the court held that there was “no reasonable connection between the actual effects of the challenged classification and the statutory goals.” Third, the court held that while Minnesota may legitimately attempt to have elective share decisions be motivated by need instead of personal gain, “it must enact across-the-board legislation rather than legislation impermissibly targeting spouses who are protected persons.”

Krebes–Lufkin appealed. In a published opinion, the court of appeals reversed. In re Durand, 845 N.W.2d 821, 823 (Minn.App.2014). The court of appeals reasoned that because the State “has determined [that] a protected person's impairment warrants additional protections and has legislated accordingly,” protected and non-protected surviving spouses are not similarly situated. Id. at 826. Because the court of appeals applied a “similarly situated” analysis at the threshold, it did not reach the rational basis test.

We granted ADMI's petition for review.

II.

The only question before us is whether differentiating between protected and non-protected persons in Minn.Stat. § 542.2–212 violates equal protection under the Minnesota Constitution. Whether a statute is unconstitutional is a question of law that we review de novo. State v. Cox, 798 N.W.2d 517, 519 (Minn.2011). Statutes are presumed to be constitutional and our “power to declare a statute unconstitutional should be exercised with extreme caution and only when absolutely necessary.” In re Welfare of B.A.H., 845 N.W.2d 158, 162 (Minn.2014).

A.

The Minnesota Constitution guarantees that “[n]o member of this state shall be disenfranchised or deprived of any of the rights or privileges secured to any citizen thereof, unless by the law of the land or the judgment of his peers.” Minn. Const. art. 1, § 2. Although the phrase “equal protection” is not used, we have recognized that the Minnesota Constitution “embodies principles of equal protection synonymous to the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.” State v. Russell, 477 N.W.2d 886, 889 n. 3 (Minn.1991).

In deciding that Minn.Stat. § 542.2–212 did not violate equal protection, the court of appeals applied a “similarly situated” threshold test. While we have applied such a test in certain equal protection cases, we need not decide whether or how to apply it here, because we can decide the case without great difficulty by applying the proper degree of scrutiny to the classifications created by the Legislature.³

If an equal protection challenge under the Minnesota Constitution involves either a suspect classification or a fundamental right, we apply strict scrutiny, which requires the classification to be “narrowly tailored and reasonably necessary to further a compelling governmental interest.” See Greene v. Comm'r of Minn. Dep't of Human Servs., 755 N.W.2d 713, 725 (Minn.2008) (quoting Hennepin Cnty. v. Perry, 561 N.W.2d 889, 897 n. 7 (Minn.1997) ). We apply intermediate scrutiny to gender-based classifications. See State ex rel. Forslund v. Bronson, 305 N.W.2d 748, 750 (Minn.1981). Otherwise, we apply Minnesota's rational-basis test. Gluba ex rel. Gluba v. Bitzan & Ohren Masonry, 735 N.W.2d 713, 719 (Minn.2007). We have characterized the Minnesota rational-basis test as “a more stringent standard of review” than its federal counterpart. See Russell, 477 N.W.2d at 889. Under Minnesota's rational-basis test, a statute must satisfy three requirements:

(1) The distinctions which separate those included within the classification from those excluded must not be manifestly arbitrary or fanciful but must be genuine and substantial, thereby providing a natural and reasonable basis to justify legislation adapted to peculiar conditions and needs; (2) the classification must be genuine or relevant to the purpose of the law; that is there must be an evident connection between the distinctive needs peculiar to the class and the prescribed remedy; and (3) the purpose of the statute must be one that the state can legitimately attempt to achieve.

Id. at 888 (quoting Wegan v. Vill. of Lexington, 309 N.W.2d 273, 280 (Minn.1981) ).

B.

ADMI's equal protection challenge requires us to examine two statutory concepts: the right of election and the nature of conservatorships.

Minnesota Statutes § 524.2–202 (2014) provides surviving spouses with the right of election. The right of election allows a person who survives his or her spouse to elect to take a share of the decedent spouse's “augmented estate,” rather than what would be received under the decedent spouse's will. Id. The augmented estate consists of:

the sum of the values of all property, whether real or personal, movable or immovable, tangible or intangible, wherever situated, that constitute the decedent's net probate estate, the decedent's nonprobate transfers to others, the decedent's nonprobate transfers to the surviving spouse, and the surviving spouse's property and nonprobate transfers to others.

Minn.Stat. § 524.2–203 (2014). The amount of the elective share varies from zero to 50 percent of the augmented estate, depending on the length of the marriage. Minn.Stat. § 524.2–202.

The statutory scheme limits the right of election for a surviving spouse who is a “protected person,” defined as “a minor or other individual for whom a conservator has been appointed or other protective order has been made.” Minn.Stat. § 524.5–102, subd. 14 (2014). In the case of a protected person:

[T]he right of election may be exercised only by order of the court in which protective proceedings as

...