Masters v. Ries

Decision Date22 March 2017
Docket NumberD070963
PartiesALLISON MASTERS, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. CHRISTINE M. RIES, Defendant and Appellant.
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS

California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

(Super. Ct. No. 30-2013-00630301)

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Orange County, Richard W. Luesebrink, Judge. Affirmed.

John L. Dodd & Associates and John L. Dodd, Benjamin Ekenes for Defendant and Appellant.

Hershorn & Henry and Jean C. Wilcox, Corbett Steelman & Specter and Ken E. Steelman for Plaintiff and Respondent.

Defendant and appellant Christine M. Ries appeals from a judgment in favor of her sister Allison Masters following a bench trial on Ries's petition seeking to confirm the will and trust of their father Adolf Wolf as well as Ries's status as its sole trustee, and Masters's cross-petition to declare void or voidable the will and trust in part on grounds those documents were procured by Ries's undue influence. The trial court declared Wolf's will and trust void and ordered his estate to pass to his heirs by intestate succession. Ries contends: (1) the trial court erroneously shifted the burden to her to prove by clear and convincing evidence that Wolf's will and trust were not procured by undue influence; (2) no substantial evidence supports the court's finding that she failed to rebut the presumption of undue influence; (3) even if substantial evidence supports the court's undue influence findings, there is no evidence the undue influence extended to the portion of Wolf's estate plan disposing of his Mercedes Benz vehicle; and (4) the court erred by including in its judgment a permanent injunction as to one of Wolf's bank accounts having a pay-on-death provision in Ries's favor.

We reject these contentions, and affirm the judgment.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

On our review of the judgment based on a statement of decision following a bench trial, we set forth the background facts in the light most favorable to Masters as the prevailing party and resolve in favor of the trial court's decision " 'any conflict in the evidence or reasonable inferences to be drawn from the facts . . . .' " (Estate of Young (2008) 160 Cal.App.4th 62, 75-76.) We refer to the trial evidence as well as those facts cited in the court's statement of decision. (See In re Shaputis (2011) 53 Cal.4th 192, 214,fn. 11; Toho-Towa Co., Ltd. v. Morgan Creek Productions, Inc. (2013) 217 Cal.App.4th 1096, 1106 [substantial evidence review extends to entire appellate record].)1

Wolf immigrated to the United States from Yugoslavia as a child. He completed school to the eighth grade, and his native language was German. Wolf was not computer literate. He could read and write but he did not enjoy it and it took him a long time. He did not subscribe to magazines or read newspapers; even later in his life he had others close to him assist him with reading, banking transactions, writing checks and penning notes to Masters and Ries. At times Wolf would become "overwhelmed" by doctors' advice and his personal bills. Wolf worked as a butcher until he retired at age 65, after which he took jobs repairing machinery and driving a truck. On occasion he loaned others money. Close friends of Wolf's knew he kept between $10,000 and $50,000 in a safe in his house. He also maintained two bank accounts with over $100,000 in each. After Wolf's retirement, he obtained cash via his pensions, social security and rent from atenant and friend, Gregory Hundtoft, who rented a room in Wolf's home. According to Hundtoft, the mortgage on Wolf's home was paid off.

Masters and Ries were born respectively in 1965 and 1971. After Wolf and their mother divorced in 1979, the girls lived with their mother, but the girls had a strained relationship with each other and did not spend time together outside their family home. Masters distanced herself from Ries because among other things, Ries spent time with unsavory people. In 1999, Ries was arrested after she bought a vehicle using someone else's name, and eventually pleaded guilty and served a prison term.2 At about that time, Masters moved to Oregon and got married, but visited California every summer. Ries, who eventually became a mother and also married, lived about 20 minutes away from Wolf. Though he was disappointed in Ries's past conduct, Wolf loved his daughters equally.

Between 2002 and 2012, Masters tried to make an effort to maintain a closer relationship with her sister at their father's wishes, and saw Ries once a year. Masters travelled to the Ventura Keys annually for vacations, and during those times visited Orange County for a few days. During those ten years, Masters had a close, respectful and trustworthy relationship with Wolf.

In mid-2000, Wolf experienced a mild heart attack and became concerned about his estate. He told Masters at that time that he wanted to make sure she knew what hehad and that everything was to be divided equally between her and Ries. They talked about Wolf transferring his interest in his house to Masters so she could control it and share it with Ries. In approximately 2007, at Wolf's request, Masters sent him simple language she obtained from a mortgage lender friend that would transfer his house to Wolf and Masters as joint tenants.

In 2011, during a discussion with Masters's husband, Ries expressed she had "to keep an eye out for my inheritance." Later that year, Hundtoft and Wolf spoke about Wolf's estate plan. Wolf told Hundtoft he had two options for how he would handle his assets on his death: Masters would get one bank account worth over $100,000 and Ries would get the rest, or Masters would get nothing and Ries would get everything.

In early July 2012, Wolf, a long time smoker, received emergency care for chest pain and coughing up blood, and in mid-July his primary care physician discovered nodules in Wolf's lungs. He also contracted shingles, for which his physician prescribed hydrocodone, a narcotic pain medication, which when used with alcohol can cause drowsiness and impact a person's alertness and possibly comprehension. About that time, Wolf reported drinking three to four beers a day. That month, Masters spent three weeks in Southern California. She only knew Wolf was not feeling well; he told her he had hurt his back and was getting over a lung infection, so during those weeks she saw him only a few times but called and spoke with him every day. During a birthday party for Ries's stepchildren, Ries told Masters that her husband's brother-in-law, Donald Hunsberger, was the attorney she was trying to get to help their father do his will. She told Masters that Hunsberger would not charge Wolf, and Ries was "going to see to it that everythingis divided equally . . . I promise." Masters thought the conversation was odd, and wondered why Ries was dictating to their father the division of his estate.

As of September 2012, doctors had diagnosed Wolf's condition as likely stage IV lung cancer. In early September 2012, Ries and Wolf came across Wolf's handwritten will while they were going through Wolf's papers. According to Ries the paper was prepared when Ries was nine or ten years old and written by Ries, Masters, and Wolf. It indicated that Wolf wanted his daughters to split things equally.

About a week later, on September 19, 2012, Ries arranged a meeting at her house between Wolf and Hunsberger. Wolf was still prescribed pain medication,3 but Hunsberger did not ask him about his prescribed medications. At that meeting, Ries filled out estate planning questionnaires for Wolf. Though Hunsberger understood then that Wolf had immigrated at a young age, had an eighth grade education, and had others assist him in banking and financial transactions, he did not discuss Wolf's ability to read. Ries was present for a few minutes at the meeting's outset, and during that time, Wolf asked to confirm that his first will was shredded.

During the meeting, Hunsberger noted that Wolf wanted a ten-year restriction on the ability to sell or borrow on his house so as to keep the funds available to his grandsons without being encumbered by loans. Wolf also made clear to Hunsberger that he had two safes, and wanted the contents of one to go to Ries and Masters to get thecontents of the other, which was in a cement floor, with each daughter to get one-half of the safe combinations so they could review the contents together. Hunsberger had a sense that Wolf's estate was in the range of $1.5 to $2 million, but left the meeting concerned he had not obtained information about all of Wolf's assets. Hunsberger never completed a final calculation of the estate's worth. He never directly spoke with Wolf again after their meeting.

Hunsberger's associate, Sarah Brewsaugh, prepared the first draft of Wolf's estate planning documents based on Hunsberger's notes and forwarded them to Ries via e-mail on September 26, 2012. Brewsaugh did not communicate with Wolf about what he wanted or elicit his feedback on her drafts, as Hunsberger had instructed Brewsaugh to communicate only via e-mail with Ries. Indeed, Brewsaugh referred to Ries as the "client." The first draft of Wolf's trust gifted his house to Ries and her sons, and required the trustee to divide Wolf's remaining trust estate into "shares of equal market value" to distribute to Masters and Ries.

On October 2, 2012, Ries e-mailed Brewsaugh and instructed her to make several changes to Wolf's estate plan including to leave Masters only one-third of a $110,000 cash gift4 and a chess set, and to omit mention of the cement floor safe. Ries also wrote: "Please also add that the hand written paper will written by ...

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT