Oehler v. Olson, No. CV-03-0083327 (CT 2/28/2005)
| Decision Date | 28 February 2005 |
| Docket Number | No. CV-03-0083327,CV-03-0083327 |
| Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
| Parties | Judith Oehler v. Elenor Olson Opinion No. 87853. |
On April 27, 1999, Marguerite Seyse (Seyse), who was domiciled in Milford, Connecticut, died. Following Seyse's death, her daughter Elenor Olson (Olson) applied to the Probate Court in Milford, Connecticut, for probate of a will that was dated February 27, 1997 (1997 will or will) and had been executed in Milford, Connecticut. Seyse's other daughter Judith Oehler (Oehler) filed a motion to dismiss the application which was denied by the Probate Court. Oehler maintained that Seyse lacked testamentary capacity to execute the will as a matter of law because she had been adjudicated a mental incompetent in the State of New Jersey on January 26, 1994. The Probate Court rejected this claim and ordered an adjudication of testamentary capacity. This appeal followed. Each side has now moved for summary judgment.
The underlying facts are not disputed: Marguerite was born on October 15, 1910 and she married Howard A. Seyse on February 14, 1934. The Seyses had two daughters, Olson and Oehler. Seyse resided in New York until 1992 when she moved to New Jersey. In 1993, Olson instituted guardianship proceedings in New Jersey on the ground of mental incompetence. On January 26, 1994, New Jersey Superior Court Judge Reginald Stanton, sitting in the Chancery Division, Probate Part, Morris County, entered a judgment finding Seyse to be "a mental incompetent as a result of unsoundness of mind and . . . incapable of governing herself and managing her affairs, and . . . unable to consent to medical treatment." NJ. Statutes §§3B-12-24, 3B-12-25.1 Olson, Oehler and Oehler's husband, John W. Oehlor, were appointed co-guardians of Seyse's person and property. Judge Stanton also appointed an arbitrator for disputes among the co-guardians.
On February 28, 1997, while visiting with Olson in Connecticut, Seyse executed the 1997 will which Oehler now challenges. Seyse was transferred from a Senior Quarters residence, where she had been residing in New Jersey, to the Chilton Pshychiatric Crisis Center where she remained until Olson had her discharged and brought her to Connecticut. Subsequently, further proceedings took place in New Jersey court regarding the guardianship. By order dated November 8, 1998, Judge Kenneth MacKenzie appointed Olson guardian of Seyse's person and Oehler the guardian of Seyse's property. By implication, the court's decision approved of Seyse's change of domicile to Connecticut. Thereafter, Seyse continued to reside with Olsen in Milford, Connecticut until she died on April 27, 1999.
After Seyse died, proceedings were held in New Jersey, again in the Superior Court, Chancery Division, Probate Part, Morris County, regarding jurisdiction of the probate of Seyse's will. In a decison dated December 13, 2000, Judge MacKenzie concluded that Seyse was domiciled in Connecticut at the time of her death and that "jurisdiction regarding the probate of Seyse's Will is properly in Connecticut." Thereafter, Oehler appealed to the Appellate Division of the Superior Court of New Jersey which issued a decision on August 6, 2002 affirming Judge MacKenzie. The court held that Olsen, as Seyse's guardian, could not act to change Seyse's domicle and that the change of Seyse's domicle to Connecticut in 1998 was in her best interest. In the Matter of Seyse, 353 N.J. Super. 580, 590, 803 A.2d 694 (App.Div.), cert. denied, 175 N.J. 80, 812 A.2d 1112 (2002). Accordingly, it concluded probate jurisdiction lay in Connecticut.
By statute, New Jersey precludes an individual who has been judicially determined to be "mentally incompetent" from executing a valid will unless there is a subsequent judicial adjudication that the person has returned to competency. N.J. Statutes §3B: 12-27.2 The question in this case is whether that statutory preclusion applies, as a matter of law, to invalidate a will, admitted for probate in Connecticut, of a Connecticut domiciliary who had been adjudicated a mental incompetent under New Jersey law prior to the execution of the challenged will. Oehler, the plaintiff in this case, relies on the full faith and credit clause of the United States Constitution and principles of collateral estoppel in arguing that Connecticut must find that Seyse lacked testamentary capacity to execute the 1997 will as a matter of law. Olson counters that the full faith and credit clause is inapplicable because New Jersey waived jurisdiction over Seyse's estate and that there is no issue preclusion because the issue of Seyse's testamentary capacity in 1997, as defined in Connecticut, was not litigated in the 1994 New Jersey guardianship proceeding.
The validity of a will conveying personal property, including issues of testamentary capacity, is controlled by the law of the testator's domicile at the time of death. Appeal of Murdoch, 81 Conn. 681, 72 A. 290 (1909); see Restatement (Second) Conflict of Laws, §263,3 W. Richman and W. Reynolds, Understanding Conflict of Laws, §90[a] (3d. Ed. 2002). Connecticut requires a factual determination of testamentary capacity when it is challenged. See Stanton v. Grigley, 177 Conn. 558, 564, 418 A.2d 923 (1979). In contrast, N.J. Stat. §3B:12-27 is a "specific legislative enactment in respect of testamentary capacity," Hackensack University Med. Ctr. v. Rossi, 338 N.J.Super 139, 149, 768 A.2d 254 (2001), which has no analog in Connecticut law. The New Jersey legislature has concluded that for a person subject to guardianship there is to be no litigation regarding testamentary capacity after that person's death. In re Estate of Bechtold, 150 N.J. Super. 550, 555, 376 A.2d 211 (1977), cert. denied, 77 N.J. 468, 391 A.2d 484 (1978); cf. Matter of Estate of Frisch, 250 N.J. Super. 438, 448, 594 A.2d 1367 (1991). Here, Oehler seeks to have the New Jersey statute, rather than Connecticut law, govern the issue of Seyse's testamentary capacity. This presents a classic choice of law question.4
Oehler, however, seeks to avoid that question by maintaining that the New Jersey statutory preclusion is an "effect" of the 1994 guardianship judgment to which Connecticut must give full and faith and credit, citing the general proposition that "the full faith and credit clause requires a state to accord to the judgment of another state the same credit, validity and effect as the state that rendered the judgment would give it." Packer Plastics, Inc. v. Laundon, 214 Conn. 52, 56, 570 A.2d 687 (1990). Oehler is not seeking to enforce the guardianship judgment in Connecticut but rather to benefit from a statutory presumption which the judgment implicates in New Jersey by raising the New Jersey statute as a bar to the admission of the 1997 will to probate.5 Thus, to the extent Oehler has a viable constitutional claim under the full faith and credit clause, the issue is whether Connecticut must give extraterritorial effect to the New Jersey statute. The court must turn to federal law to decide this issue. Segal v. Segal, 86 Conn.App. 617, 639 n.21, 863 A.2d 221 (2004).
In deciding issues of extraterritorial effects of statutes under the full faith and credit clause, the United States Supreme Court has recognized that "a State need not substitute the statutes of other states for its own statutes dealing with a subject matter concerning which it is competent to legislate." (Internal quotation marks omitted; internal citations omitted). Franchise Tax Board v. Hyatt, 538 U.S. 488, 496, 123 S.Ct. 1683, 1687, 155 L.Ed.2d 702, 711 (2003). Traditionally, state legislatures have been deemed competent to enact legislation regarding the disposition of estates. It is well established that "the full faith and credit clause does not require one state to substitute for its own statute, applicable to persons and events within it, the conflicting statute of another state, even though that statute is of controlling force in the courts of the state of its enactment with respect to the same persons and events." Pacific Employers Insurance Co. v. Industrial Accident Commission, 306 U.S 493, 502, 59 S.Ct. 629, 633, 83 L.Ed. 940, 945 (1939). Nonetheless, the full faith and credit clause and the due process clause require the application of the law of the state which has a "significant contact or significant aggregation of contacts, creating state interests, such that choice of its law is neither arbitrary nor fundamentally unfair." Allstate Ins. Co. v. Hague, 449 U.S 302, 310-13, 101 S.Ct. 633, 66 L.Ed.2d 521 (1981). See O'Connor v. O'Connor, 201 Conn. 632, 640, 519 A.2d 13 (1986); Rosengarten v. Downes, 71 Conn.App. 372, 385, 202 A.2d 70, cert. granted, 261 Conn. 936, 806 A.2d 1066 (2002).
Based on the undisputed facts, it is clear that there is significant contact with Connecticut in this case and a significant interest in applying Connecticut's law regarding testamentary capacity which make the choice of Connecticut law neither arbitrary nor fundamentally unfair. Most important is the fact that Seyse was domiciled in Connecticut at the time of her death, a fact the New Jersey court found when it concluded it lacked jurisdiction to probate Seyse's estate. In the Matter of Seyse, supra, 353 N.J.Super. 590. Moreover by acknowledging that probate jurisdiction lies in Connecticut, New Jersey has arguably waived any interest in the extraterritorial application of its statute. Indeed, under New Jersey law as interpreted by the court in the Seyse case, id., at 587, the ratification of Seyse's change of domicile to Connecticut in 1998 means that New Jersey lost jurisdiction over her at that time.6
Another significant factor is that the challenged will was executed in Connecticut. Unlike New Jersey, Connecticut has a strong pubic policy that permits a person subject to...
To continue reading
Request your trial