In re Sheltra

• Decision Date: 13 August 2020
• Docket Number: Docket: Yor-19-327
• Citation: 238 A.3d 234
• Parties: ESTATE OF Claudette SHELTRA
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

238 A.3d 234

ESTATE OF Claudette SHELTRA

Docket: Yor-19-327

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Argued: July 15, 2020

Decided: August 13, 2020

Vanessa A. Bartlett, Esq. (orally), Portland, for appellant Janet Sheltra

F. Jay Meyer, Esq. (orally), Troubh Heisler LLC, Portland, for appellee Paul Sheltra

Panel: MEAD, GORMAN, JABAR, HUMPHREY, HORTON and CONNORS, JJ.

CONNORS, J.

[¶1] Janet Sheltra appeals from a summary judgment determining that her petition for formal probate was time barred and from a subsequent order of complete settlement, both entered by the York County Probate Court (Chabot, J. ). For the reasons discussed below, we dismiss the appeal from the summary judgment as untimely, and, subject to modification, we affirm the order of complete settlement.

I. BACKGROUND

[¶2] In 2006, Claudette Sheltra executed a will that expressly revoked any prior wills. She died on January 7, 2015, survived by her son, Paul Sheltra, and her daughter, Janet Sheltra. Shortly thereafter, Paul filed an application for informal probate of the 2006 will and was appointed personal representative of Claudette's estate in February 2015.

[¶3] On January 25, 2018, Janet filed two pro se petitions: one for formal probate of a will executed by Claudette in 2004 and appointment of herself as personal representative and another seeking the removal of Paul as personal representative. Paul opposed Janet's petitions and moved for summary judgment as to her petition for formal probate on the basis that it was barred by the statute of limitations. See 18-A M.R.S. § 3-108 (2018).¹ Paul also filed a petition for final settlement of the Estate. Janet retained counsel and moved for more time to respond to Paul's motion for summary judgment; the court granted her an extension. Before filing any response, however, Janet's counsel filed a motion to withdraw, which the court granted.

[¶4] Once again acting pro se, Janet filed a response to Paul's motion for summary judgment in which she set forth the circumstances that she believed excused the untimeliness of her petition, along with several supporting documents. Janet alleged that her petitions had been untimely because she was scared of Paul and that she had suffered from other unfortunate events that had interfered with her ability to get to court. Her response did not comply with M.R. Civ. P. 56(h). For example, she failed to admit, deny, or qualify the facts in Paul's statement of material facts; she did not list her additional facts in separately-numbered paragraphs; and she offered no record citations in support of her factual assertions.

[¶5] In a May 15, 2018, judgment, the court opted to "analyze [Janet's] submission as if it were compliant," but it nevertheless determined that her allegations were not sufficient to toll the three-year statute of limitations and that her petition was time barred. See 18-A M.R.S. § 3-108. The court therefore granted Paul's motion for summary judgment as to Janet's petition for formal probate but noted that she could continue with her petition to remove Paul as personal representative.

[¶6] The following month, the court held a pretrial conference on Paul's and Janet's remaining petitions and ordered the parties to attend pretrial mediation. Thereafter, Paul filed three motions: (1) a motion in limine seeking to exclude certain evidence at the trial on Janet's motion to remove him as personal representative, (2) a motion to compel Janet to attend mediation, and (3) a motion for allowance of costs and attorney fees. After much delay—during which time Janet obtained new counsel and the parties participated in unsuccessful mediation—the court held a trial on Paul's and Janet's petitions on February 22, 2019.

[¶7] Before the trial began, the court granted Paul's motion in limine and ordered that Janet was prohibited from offering evidence on issues other than the bases for removal of a personal representative, see 18-A M.R.S. § 3-611(b) (2018) (outlining what constitutes cause for removal of a personal representative), and Paul's conduct prior to his appointment as personal representative "unless it resulted in unfair treatment or mismanagement of the [E]state." In response to that ruling, Janet made an oral motion to withdraw her petition for Paul's removal as personal representative, and the court entered an order dismissing that petition.

[¶8] A short trial on Paul's petition for complete settlement then ensued. Afterward, the court entered an order that, among other things, directed Paul to provide an accounting and attorney fee affidavit to Janet and for Janet to identify specific objections thereto. Paul did so, Janet lodged her objections, and Paul filed two more supplementary inventories in response. The process culminated in a telephone conference on June 28, 2019, at which time "both parties indicated that additional court time was not necessary and the matter was ready for decision."

[¶9] On July 1, 2019, the court entered a judgment ordering Paul to transfer certain property to Janet in accordance with Claudette's 2006 will and a personal property addendum. The court also awarded $22,995.97 in attorney fees to Paul to be paid for only out of Janet's share of the Estate, an amount that represented the legal fees he incurred as personal representative after Janet filed her petitions in January 2018.

[¶10] Janet appealed. See 18-A M.R.S. § 1-308 (2018) ; M.R. App. P. 2B(c)(1).

II. DISCUSSION

A. Timeliness of Appeal from Summary Judgment

[¶11] The first issue that must be addressed is whether Janet's appeal from the summary judgment dismissing her petition for formal probate was timely.²

[¶12] Paul argues that the twenty-one-day appeal period began to run from the entry of the summary judgment rejecting Janet's petition on May 15, 2018, because that judgment was "final" and "fully resolved all issues presented in the formal probate proceeding" commenced by Janet's petition. Janet counters that the summary judgment was not final because it did not dispose of her remaining petition to remove Paul as personal representative and that her notice of appeal was timely because it was filed within twenty-one days of the entry of the court's order on Paul's petition for complete settlement of the Estate on July 1, 2019.

[¶13] To "avoid piecemeal litigation and to preserve our limited judicial resources," we have long adhered to the general rule that "only final judgments are ripe for appellate review." In re Adoption of Matthew R. , 2000 ME 86, ¶ 4, 750 A.2d 1262 (quotation marks omitted). A judgment is final when it "fully decides and disposes of the entire matter pending before the court" and leaves "no questions for the future consideration and judgment of the court." Safety Ins. Group v. Dawson , 2015 ME 64, ¶ 6, 116 A.3d 948 (quotation marks omitted).

[¶14] The application of the final judgment rule to the unsupervised administration of estates, however, is complicated by the fact that each estate may involve multiple proceedings. Title 18-A M.R.S. § 3-107 (2018)³ states, "Unless supervised administration ... is involved, ... each proceeding before the judge or register is independent of any other proceeding involving the same estate."⁴ The comment to the Uniform Probate Code section from which section 3-107 is derived explains that the scope of a proceeding is "framed by the petition" unless "otherwise prescribed by the Code."⁵ Unif. Probate Code § 3-107 cmt., included with 18-A M.R.S.A. § 3-107 (2012).

[¶15] Maine Rule of Probate Procedure 79 further confirms the independent proceeding framework established by section 3-107 by directing registers of probate to assign every estate "a master docket number when the first proceeding concerning it is commenced in the court" and then to assign each proceeding involving the same estate "a subsidiary docket number consisting of the master docket number and a numerical suffix identifying that proceeding."

In this case, for example, the master docket number for the Estate was 2015-0128, and there were three subsidiary docket numbers: 2015-0128(1) Janet's petition for removal, 2015-0128(2) Janet's petition for formal probate, and 2015-0128(3) Paul's petition for complete settlement.

[¶16] We have never specifically addressed how section 3-107 and subsidiary docket numbers affect the time for appeal in probate matters. See Hunt, Maine Probate Law § 3.107 at 113 (1999) ("To date, the Supreme Judicial Court has not addressed Section 3-107, but there are some interesting issues raised by the independent proceedings concept. One of the more interesting questions involves when a particular proceeding is ripe for appeal.").⁶ A leading treatise on Maine probate procedure, however, warns that a "subsidiary docket is a separate proceeding" that "can and often does go to final judgment long before estate administration is finished." Mitchell & Hunt, Maine Probate Procedure § 9.1.7 at 9-8 (2017).

[¶17] Because section 3-107 is based on a uniform law, other state courts have addressed its effect on finality and ripeness. The consensus among the courts that have examined this issue is that each probate petition "should ordinarily be considered as initiating an independent proceeding, so that an order disposing of the matters raised in the petition should be considered a final, appealable order" even if there are other pending proceedings involving the same estate or if the estate has yet to be fully administered. In re Estate of Newalla , 114 N.M. 290, 837 P.2d 1373, 1377 (Ct. App. 1992) [hereinafter Newalla ]; see In re Estate of Geier , 809 N.W.2d 355, 357-60 (S.D. 2012) (citing Newalla with approval); Waldow v. LaPorta , 226 Ariz. 277, 246 P.3d 628, 630-31 (2010) (same); Scott v. Scott , 136 P.3d 892, 896-97, 899 (Colo. 2006) (same); Schmidt v. Schmidt , 540 N.W.2d 605, 607 (N.D. 1995) (holding similarly).⁷

[¶18] We agree with this consensus view, which dovetails with the subsidiary docket framework for separate proceedings established by ...