In re Meetze

• Decision Date: 21 July 2020
• Docket Number: No. COA19-1097,COA19-1097
• Citation: 847 S.E.2d 220
• Parties: In the MATTER OF the ESTATE OF John Timothy MEETZE, Deceased.
• Court: North Carolina Court of Appeals

847 S.E.2d 220

In the MATTER OF the ESTATE OF John Timothy MEETZE, Deceased.

No. COA19-1097

Court of Appeals of North Carolina.

Filed: July 21, 2020

Batts, Batts & Bell, LLP, by Michael R. Smith, Jr., Rocky Mount, and Benjamin D. Carter, for Petitioner-Appellant.

Narron & Holdford, P.A., by Ben L. Eagles, for Respondents-Appellees.

INMAN, Judge.

Petitioner-Appellant Candee Able Peacock ("Ms. Peacock"), who applied for and received an assignment and a deficiency judgment for her spousal year's allowance from an assistant clerk with the Wilson County Superior Court, appeals an order of the superior court: (1) affirming the Wilson County Clerk of Superior Court's decision to re-date the assignment and deficiency judgment, thereby renewing Respondent-Appellees Jordan Lynn Batchelor's and Blair Nicole Batchelor's (the "Batchelors") time to appeal them to the superior court; and (2) disqualifying Ms. Peacock from receiving her spousal allowance under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 31A-1(a) (2019). After careful review, we reverse the trial court's order.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

The record below discloses the following:

Ms. Peacock and John Timothy Meetze ("Decedent") were married in South Carolina on 13 April 1997. Decedent physically abused Ms. Peacock throughout the marriage. On 23 April 1998, Decedent physically assaulted Ms. Peacock and caused multiple injuries that required medical attention. Ms. Peacock fled the home that day, beginning what would become a years-long separation. Ms. Peacock also sought a Domestic Violence Protective Order against Decedent, which was granted by a South Carolina court on 4 May 1998.

Ms. Peacock filed for divorce in South Carolina later that year. Decedent then sent a letter from prison to Ms. Peacock's lawyer stating he still loved his wife and would be contesting the divorce. As a result of the letter, Ms. Peacock dropped the divorce proceeding. Ms. Peacock saw Defendant for the last time in a South Carolina courtroom in 1999 but had no further contact with him.

Decedent and Ms. Peacock remained separated and both entered other relationships between 1999 and Decedent's death in January 2016. Ms. Peacock had sexual relationships and cohabitated with at least two other men, while Decedent purported to marry Carol Burgess Meetze ("Ms. Burgess") on 4 August 2001. Burgess was unaware that Decedent was still married to Ms. Peacock.

Ms. Peacock filed a second divorce action in Virginia in December of 2015. Decedent passed away the following month and Ms. Peacock voluntarily dismissed her divorce action.

On 29 January 2016, Ms. Burgess filed an application for and was assigned the spousal year's allowance by the Wilson County Clerk of Superior Court. On 5 February 2016, however, Decedent's son from a previous marriage filed a motion to set aside the assignment of the year's allowance to Ms. Burgess because Decedent was still married to Ms. Peacock at the time of his death. On 15 February 2016, while Decedent's son's motion was still pending, Ms. Peacock filed with the Clerk her own application for the spousal year's allowance. She also joined the motion to set aside the assignment to Ms. Burgess. The trial court later set aside the assignment of the year's allowance to Ms. Burgess after declaring the marriage void, and, in July 2017, this Court affirmed that order. In re Estate of Meetze , 254 N.C. App. 610, 802 S.E.2d 916, 2017 WL 3027483 (2017) (unpublished). Following that decision, the Batchelors—the children of Decedent's godmother—filed Decedent's purported Last Will and Testament, which named them as beneficiaries and voided any gifts to Ms. Burgess.

Despite her filing of the application on 15 February 2016 and this Court's subsequent ruling setting aside Ms. Burgess's spousal allowance, Ms. Peacock's application for the year's allowance sat unresolved in the Clerk's office until 15 February 2019, when an assistant clerk allowed the application and assigned the year's allowance to Ms. Peacock (the "Assignment"). The assistant clerk also entered a deficiency judgment for the full amount of the allowance because funds in Decedent's estate were insufficient to pay it (the "Deficiency Judgment"). In reviewing the Assignment, the assistant clerk believed it had been erroneously left unsigned on 15 February 2016. So, she dated her signature on the Assignment 15 February 2016. The assistant clerk dated the Deficiency Judgment 15 February 2019 consistent with the date she actually signed.

The backdating of the Assignment was brought to the attention of Wilson County's elected Clerk of Superior Court (the "Clerk") sometime after its entry and, on 1 April 2019, the Clerk heard arguments from counsel for the parties concerning whether the assistant clerk correctly dated the Assignment and the Deficiency Judgment. The Clerk determined that the Assignment was signed by the assistant clerk on 15 February 2019 but was "mistakenly" dated 15 February 2016. As a result, the Clerk entered an order on 4 April 2019 re-dating the entry of the Assignment and Deficiency Judgment to 4 April 2019 (the "Clerk's Order"). In that order, the Clerk concluded that such relief was authorized pursuant to Rule 60 of the North Carolina Rules of Civil Procedure without specifying which specific subsection of the Rule applied.

Following the entry of the Clerk's Order, the Batchelors and Ms. Burgess filed a motion to set aside the Assignment and Deficiency Judgment and a Notice of Appeal to superior court. Ms. Peacock also filed a Notice of Appeal, as well as a motion challenging Ms. Burgess's standing to appeal, a motion to stay proceedings, and an answer to the motion to set aside the Assignment and Deficiency Judgment.

On 22 July 2019, the trial court heard the parties’ appeals. At the hearing, the assistant clerk testified about backdating the Assignment. The assistant clerk explained that she backdated the Assignment because she believed it was supposed to have been signed concurrent with the filing of Ms. Peacock's application on 15 February 2016 as a matter of rote procedure, and assumed in 2019 that it went unsigned by simple oversight.

Ms. Peacock also testified at the hearing, describing in detail the abuse and injuries she suffered at Decedent's hands. The court received photographs of her injuries into evidence, as well as a transcript of the domestic violence protection hearing in which she described her injuries for the South Carolina court. Ms. Peacock further testified that Decedent continued to harass her by phone after they separated, that she stayed away for fear of her personal safety, and that she did not try to get back together with Decedent because she "d[id]n't think [she]'d be sitting here today if [she] would have."

In an order dated 3 September 2019, the trial court granted Ms. Peacock's motion to dismiss Ms. Burgess's appeal, concluding she lacked standing because her marriage to Decedent was void. The trial court also affirmed the Clerk's re-dating of the Assignment and Deficiency Judgment based on Rule 60 of the North Carolina Rules of Civil Procedure. Finally, the trial court granted the Batchelor's motion to set aside the Assignment and Deficiency Judgment pursuant to N.C. Gen. Stat. § 31A-1. Although the trial court found that Ms. Peacock "involuntarily and unwilfully separated from [Decedent]," it also determined that, "[b]ased upon the passage of time between [the] involuntary separation ... to include [Ms.] Peacock's prior divorce filings as well as lack of contact between the parties, Ms. Peacock did willfully and without cause abandon [Decedent]." Ms. Peacock timely appealed.

II. ANALYSIS

Ms. Peacock presents two principal arguments on appeal: (1) the trial court erred in concluding that the Clerk was authorized under Rule 60 to amend the dates of entry of the Assignment and Deficiency Judgment to 4 April 2019; and (2) if the Clerk did possess that authority, the trial court erred in concluding that Ms. Peacock willfully and without just cause abandoned Decedent such that she was disqualified from receiving her spousal year's allowance. We address each argument in turn.

A. Standards of Review

"The personal representative, or the surviving spouse, or child by the child's guardian or next friend, or any creditor, devisee, or heir of the deceased, may appeal" de novo a clerk of court's ruling regarding spousal allowance to superior court. N.C. Gen. Stat. § 30-23 ; see also N. C. Gen. Stat. § 1-301.2 (2019) (providing for de novo review of such an appeal to superior court). On appeal to this Court, "[u]nchallenged findings of fact ‘are presumed to be supported by competent evidence and are binding on appeal.’ " In re Estate of Harper , ––– N.C. App. ––––, ––––, 837 S.E.2d 602, 604 (2020) (quoting In re Estate of Warren , 81 N.C. App. 634, 636, 344 S.E.2d 795, 796 (1986) ). Conclusions of law are subject to de novo review. In re Estate of Peacock , 248 N.C. App. 18, 21, 788 S.E.2d 191, 194 (2016).

Relief under Rule 60(a) is limited to the "correction of clerical errors, [and] it does not permit the correction of serious or substantial errors." Buncombe Cty. By and Through Child Support Enf't Agency ex rel. Andres v. Newburn , 111 N.C. App. 822, 825, 433 S.E.2d 782, 784 (1993) (citation omitted). A trial court's order correcting a clerical error under Rule 60(a) is subject to the abuse of discretion standard. Id. A trial court abuses its discretion and enters an order outside the scope of the Rule "when it alters the effect of the original order." Id. (citation omitted). Relief under Rule 60(b) is also left to the discretion of the trial court, and its determination "will not be disturbed absent: (1) an abuse of discretion; and/or (2) a trial court's misapprehension of the appropriate legal standard for ruling on a Rule 60(b) motion." Pope v. Pope , 247 N.C. App. 587, 590, 786 S.E.2d 373, 376-77 (2016) (quotation marks and citation omitted).

B. Rule 60

Rule 60 provides relief from a final judgment or...