Moore v. Graybeal, Civ. A. No. 86-252-JJF.

• Decision Date: 02 October 1987
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 86-252-JJF.
• Citation: 670 F. Supp. 130
• Parties: Barbara Purse MOORE, Plaintiff, v. C. Edward GRAYBEAL, Sr., M.D., Mrs. C. Edward Graybeal a/k/a Ruth Graybeal, Milford Memorial Hospital, Bank of Delaware, and Wilson O. McCabe, Register of Wills, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Delaware

670 F. Supp. 130

Barbara Purse MOORE, Plaintiff, v. C. Edward GRAYBEAL, Sr., M.D., Mrs. C. Edward Graybeal a/k/a Ruth Graybeal, Milford Memorial Hospital, Bank of Delaware, and Wilson O. McCabe, Register of Wills, Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 86-252-JJF.

United States District Court, D. Delaware.

October 2, 1987.

Donald W. Booker, Wilmington, Del., for plaintiff.

Walter L. Pepperman, II, Morris, Nichols, Arsht & Tunnell, Wilmington, Del., for defendants Graybeal, Milford Memorial Hosp. and Bank of Delaware.

James A. Fuqua, Jr., Fuqua & Graves, Georgetown, Del., for defendant McCabe.

OPINION

FARNAN, District Judge.

Jean L. Purse died testate in the State of Delaware on January 4, 1986. A will dated July 24, 1984, was thereafter delivered to the Register of Wills for Sussex County. This will, having been proved in accordance with the laws of Delaware, was admitted to probate by the Register of Wills on January 16, 1986. On that day, the Bank of Delaware ("Bank") filed a petition for Letters Testamentary and has since been appointed Executor of the Estate. Pursuant to its statutory duty under 12 Delaware Code § 1905(a), the Bank filed an inventory of the Estate in the office of the Register of Wills on April 17, 1986. On August 1, 1986, plaintiffs, Barbara Purse Moore and her children, filed a complaint in this Court against the beneficiaries of the Estate of Jean L. Purse. Also named as defendants in this suit are the Bank of Delaware, in its capacity as Executor of the Estate, and Wilson O. McCabe, the Register of Wills of Sussex County, in his official capacity. But for the suit now pending before the Court, it appears the Executors are prepared to settle the Estate of Jean L. Purse and distribute the assets of the Estate in accordance with the terms of her 1984 will.

Plaintiffs' Complaint alleges, among other things, that plaintiffs are residents of Colorado related by marriage to Jean L. Purse. Apparently, in 1979 Jean L. Purse executed a will that bequeathed the substantial residue of her estate to the Bank of Delaware, to be held in trust for the benefit of the plaintiffs. However, the 1984 will, referred to above, amends the 1979 will and leaves the residue of the estate to Dr. C. Edward Graybeal and the Milford Memorial Hospital.

The Complaint alleges that for several years preceding her death in 1986, Jean L. Purse suffered from cancer. As a result, she was ill, infirm, and often hospitalized at the Milford Memorial Hospital during the ten year period leading up to the execution of the 1984 will. During those years, her treating physician was Dr. C. Edward Graybeal. Plaintiffs' predicate the claimed invalidity of the 1984 will upon the theory that, because of the drugs prescribed and administered by Dr. Graybeal, the competency of the testatrix was undermined, leaving her particularly susceptible to the undue influence that Dr. Graybeal, the Hospital, and Mrs. Ruth Graybeal allegedly exerted over her while she was subject to their care and treatment.

The plaintiffs, eschewing the statutory scheme Delaware provides for review of a will, have petitioned this Court for relief. Specifically, plaintiffs ask the Court to assess against Dr. and Mrs. Graybeal, the Milford Memorial Hospital, and the Bank of Delaware damages amounting to $975,000, the approximate value of the Estate of Jean L. Purse, for the harm done plaintiffs by the undue influence allegedly exerted on the testatrix by those defendants. Plaintiffs further request an Order restraining the Bank of Delaware from distributing any of the Estate's assets to either the Graybeals, or the Milford Memorial Hospital. Plaintiffs then request that I set aside the later will and reinstate the 1979 will. In the alternative, plaintiffs' Complaint indicates that plaintiffs are prepared to forego the above-mentioned relief, provided the Court: (1) Orders and directs that the assets and property of Jean L. Purse be distributed in accordance with the 1979 will; (2) awards the plaintiffs two million dollars in punitive damages against the Graybeals, the Milford Memorial Hospital, and the Bank of Delaware; and (3) directs the Register of Wills to obey any Order this Court may make regarding the distribution of the assets of Jean L. Purse.

Now pending before the Court is Defendants' Motion to Dismiss the Complaint under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b). The defendants have moved to dismiss the Complaint for the following reasons: (1) the Court lacks jurisdiction over the subject matter of the Complaint; (2) the Complaint fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted; and (3) the plaintiffs have failed to join indispensible parties under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 19. Plaintiffs original Complaint named as defendants only Dr. and Mrs. Graybeal, the Milford Memorial Hospital, the Bank of Delaware, and Wilson O. McCabe, the Register of Wills. After those defendants moved to dismiss the Complaint, plaintiff moved to amend the Complaint, adding her children as plaintiffs, and joining as defendants those beneficiaries identified in the 1984 Will who were not named in the original Complaint. The Court will assume, without deciding, that plaintiffs' Amended Complaint meets the requirements of Rule 19, and will test defendants' Motion to Dismiss against the parties and allegations contained in plaintiffs' Proposed Amended Complaint.

DISCUSSION

This case addresses the power of a federal court, sitting in diversity, to entertain jurisdiction over cases concerning the probate or annulment of the probate of a will. It is by now a well-settled proposition that a federal court will not assume jurisdiction over a petition whose object is to avoid a will or set aside its probate. Case of Broderick's Will, 88 U.S. (21 Wall.) 503, 509, 22 L.Ed. 599 (1874). Our lack of jurisdiction over matters probate in nature stems from the original grant of equity jurisdiction conferred upon the courts of the United States by the Judiciary Act of 1789, Ch. 20, § 11, 1 Stat. 78, which mirrors the equity jurisdiction then residing in the English Court of Chancery. Broderick's Will, 88 U.S. (21 Wall.) at 510-14; Conover v. Montemuro, 477 F.2d 1073, 1101 (3rd Cir. 1973). At that time, issues relating to the probate of wills and the administration of estates were matters within the exclusive jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical court and, that being the case, such matters were not encompassed by the Judiciary Act's conferral of jurisdiction upon the federal courts. Dragan v. Miller, 679 F.2d 712, 713 (7th Cir.1982) (citing Markham v. Allen, 326 U.S. 490, 494, 66 S.Ct. 296, 298, 90 L.Ed. 256 (1946)).

The case law emanating from both the United States Supreme Court and the lower federal courts establishes the proposition that, since actions to set aside a will or its probate or to administer the estates of decedents in rem are not subjects within the ordinary cognizance of a court of equity because they are purely statutory in nature, they likewise fall outside the equitable jurisdiction of the federal courts. See, e.g., Sutton v. English, 246 U.S. 199, 205, 38 S.Ct. 254, 256, 62 L.Ed.2d 664 (1918); Eyber v. Dominion Nat'l Bank of Bristol Office, 249 F.Supp. 531, 533 (W.D. Va.1966). Probate is a proceeding in rem that exists solely by virtue of a state's statutory authorization of the right of its citizens to make wills. The probate proceeding itself exists merely to effectuate the will. Ellis v. Davis, 109 U.S. 485, 497, 3 S.Ct. 327, 334, 27 L.Ed. 1006 (1883).

As noted above, the probate of a will or the administration of a decedent's estate are not subjects within the cognizance of a court of equity. It therefore follows that a state court of general equity jurisdiction is without power to probate a will or administer an estate unless that power has been expressly conferred upon the court by statute. Similarly, the federal courts would lack that power unless conferred on state courts of equity. But where a state has given the proper parties a right to bring an inter partes action to set aside a will or its probate, a federal court sitting in that state will, under limited circumstances, enforce the remedies provided by the state if the requirements of diversity jurisdiction are satisfied. Sutton v. English, 246 U.S. at 205, 38 S.Ct. at 256; Farrell v. O'Brien, 199 U.S. 89, 110, 25 S.Ct. 727, 733, 50 L.Ed. 101 (1905); Dragan v. Miller, 679 F.2d 712, 715 (7th Cir.1982). A federal court's jurisdiction over such actions is limited by the meaning attributed to the phrase inter partes. In Farrell v. O'Brien, the Supreme Court fixed the meaning of the term as follows:

... the words referred to must relate only to independent controversies inter partes, and not to mere controversies which may arise on an application to probate a will because the state law provides for notice, or to disputes concerning the setting aside of a probate, when the remedy to set aside afforded by the state law is a mere continuation of the probate proceeding, that is to say, merely a method of procedure ancillary to the original probate, allowed by the state law for the purpose of giving to the probate its ultimate and final effect. We say the words action or suit inter partes must have this significance, because unless that be their import it would follow that a state may not allow any question to be raised concerning the right to probate at the time of the application, or any such question thereafter to be made in an ancillary probate proceeding without depriving itself of its concededly exclusive authority over the probate of wills. This may be readily illustrated. Thus, if a state law provides for any form of notice on an application to probate a will and authorizes a contest before the admission of the writing to probate, then it would

...