Petty v. Call
| Decision Date | 02 June 1980 |
| Citation | 599 S.W.2d 791 |
| Parties | Everett PETTY, Ethel Petty Nelson, Fairor Petty Lee, Jill Petty Smith, Jo Ann Petty Hassig, Bettie Petty Brown, Jerry J. Petty Bargy, Walter Dean Petty and Jack Petty, Appellants, v. Anna CALL, Clint Gunter, Lola Call, Georgia Cunningham, Mable Rodgers, Wyla Jo Rodgers Page, Jerry Mac Rodgers, Walter Y. Sellers, Leta P. Sellers, Paul F. Bachman, Trustee, and The Federal Land Bank of Louisville, Appellees. |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
Jere C. Gordon, Kenton, for appellants.
Bruce Conley, C. W. Miles, III, Miles & Miles, William B. Acree, Jr., Elam, Glasgow, Tanner & Acree, Union City, Harry Max Speight, Dresden, Earl P. Davis, Davis & Davis, Memphis, for appellees.
Plaintiffs are heirs of Cora Crabtree who contend they would collectively take one-fourth of her estate if her will leaving her entire estate to Billie Rodgers, a non-relative, had been declared invalid. The contest to declare it invalid was instituted by defendants, Anna Call, Clint Gunter, Lola Call, and Georgia Cunningham, hereinafter called contestants, who are all but one of the other heirs of Cora Crabtree. Prior to trial, contestants settled with the proponents of the will, who were heirs of Billie Rodgers. The contestants received a quitclaim deed to 114.85 acres of land from proponents in exchange for a quitclaim deed conveying to proponents a lot in Obion, Tennessee and two tracts of land totaling 188.85 acres. The quitclaim deed to proponents was executed September 10, 1976, and recorded on September 21, 1976. The quitclaim deed to contestants was executed the 13th day of September, 1976, and recorded September 30, 1976. On September 17, 1976, the will contest in the Circuit Court of Obion County came on for trial and a judgment was entered reciting that the parties waived a jury and that the Court found "(t)he issues joined in favor of the plaintiffs . . . that the writing in issue mentioned is the last will and testament of Cora Crabtree, deceased." Plaintiffs' complaint asserted that no proof whatever was presented by contestants.
Plaintiffs contend that their complaint states a cause of action entitling them to a trial on the issues of (1) whether contestants were required to give them notice of the filing of the will contest and of the settlement, and (2) their charge that the settlement agreement and non-contest of the will was a fraudulent, collusive scheme between contestants and proponents, the purpose of which was to defraud plaintiffs of their interest in the estate of Cora Crabtree.
The learned chancellor sustained the motions of defendants that the complaint failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. The Court of Appeals affirmed.
The complaint alleges that contestants executed and delivered a warranty deed to defendants, Walter Sellers and wife Leta Sellers after their purchase of the property at a widely advertised auction. We agree with the Court of Appeals that the Sellers were innocent purchasers for value. The issue of whether notice to all heirs of Cora Crabtree was required to validate the judgment in the will contest is relevant to and will be considered along with the status of the Sellers as innocent purchasers for value.
Since statehood our cases have consistently held that a will contest is a proceeding in rem, and the res being the estate of the deceased, all persons who have any just or colorable claim, in the event of testacy or intestacy, have a right to become parties, but failing to do so they are bound by the result, which is conclusive upon all the world. E.g. Jones v. Witherspoon, 182 Tenn. 498, 187 S.W.2d 788 (1945); Lillard v. Tolliver, 154 Tenn. 304, 285 S.W.2d 576 (1926); Larus v. Bank of Commerce & Trust Co., 149 Tenn. 126, 257 S.W. 94 (1923); Fry v. Taylor, 38 Tenn. 594 (1858); Patton v. Allison, 26 Tenn. 320 (1846); Hodges v. Bauchman, 16 Tenn. 186 (1835); Arnold v. Marcom, 49 Tenn.App. 161, 352 S.W.2d 936 (1961).
In Tennessee, the right to intervene in a will contest is not accompanied by the right to notice of its filing. That may be considered somewhat perplexing in light of the fact that probate in solemn form requires notice to interested parties in order to be bound by the proceedings, and the trial of the issue, devisavit vel non in the circuit court, "amounts to the probate of a will in solemn form." Bearman v. Camatsos, 215 Tenn. 231, 238, 385 S.W.2d 91, 94 (1964); see 1 Pritchard, Wills and Estates § 328 (3d ed., H. Phillips 1955). In addition, our research discloses that forty-three states have statutes requiring notice of the filing of a will contest, to variously described interested parties. The statutes in twelve of those states are modeled after the notice prescribed in the Uniform Probate Code.
We have found no Tennessee case that has directly considered the question of the necessity to notify all interested persons of the filing of a will contest. The probate and contest of wills are basically statutory rights and statutory proceedings, derived not from the common law but from the ecclesiastical courts of England. See Lillard v. Tolliver, supra; Jones v. Witherspoon, supra; Arnold v. Marcom, supra. Our research convinces us that this Court has not seen fit to mandate a requirement of notice to all interested parties based upon rationale expressed in Hodges v. Bauchman, supra, and Brown v. Brown, 86 Tenn. 277, 6 S.W. 869, 7 S.W. 640 (1888).
"The probate of a will, or the granting letters of administration, is a proceeding in the nature of a proceeding in rem, operating on the subject-matter, and binding generally; the probate is evidence of title, without reference to parties, who do not and cannot regularly exist in such cases. . . .
All who are interested may become parties in conducting the litigation in case of a contested will, and, if they do not, it is indispensable to the repose of society that they be concluded. Were it otherwise, and, ten or twenty years after the first trial was had, the estate distributed, and the devisees of the lands at rest, their titles might be upturned in whole, or, as here contended, in part.
We are called upon, perhaps for the first time, to give a construction to the act of 1789 ch. 23, providing for the probate of wills and the mode of contesting their validity. . . .
The act does not speak of parties plaintiffs and defendants no such idea was in the minds of the legislature; it was made the duty of the court of probate to ascertain whether the will had been duly executed, without reference to the individuals interested in the result of admitting the will to record; the court was bound to act upon the subject-matter, and to settle the title to the property, late of the testator, left without an owner. The interests of society admitted of no delay. If any one or more, interested in the result, objected to the validity of the will, then the court was ordered by the statute to make up an issue, will or no will, and try the fact before a jury, minding to examine all the living witnesses to the will, and to hear such other proofs as those interested might adduce, and, according to the finding of the issue by the jury, record the will or reject the paper presented as such. But this was a proceeding for the ends of justice of a public nature, and conclusive on the world." 16 Tenn. at 187-90.
In Brown v. Brown, supra, on petition to rehear, the Court was examining the principles governing will contests and made these comments with respect to the nature of proceedings in rem:
86 Tenn. at 319, 7 S.W. at 647.
It may be that given our mobile society and our expanded concept of due process that interested parties should not be bound by the results of a trial or settlement of will contest in the absence of notice. As indicated, the forty-three states that now require notice to interested parties in will contests have accomplished this by legislative action, and we are of the opinion that the propriety of such a requirement in Tennessee is a matter for the Legislature rather than the judiciary.
Having concluded that notice to all of the heirs was not required, we find no deficiencies upon the face of the record in the circuit court proceeding that resulted in a judgment upholding the will of Cora Crabtree. It follows that defendant Sellers and wife were entitled to rely upon that judgment as conclusive upon the world.
A purchaser for value, absent actual knowledge of fraud, cannot be required to look behind a final court decree adjudicating the issue of devisavit vel non for possible fraud and collusion between the proponents and contestants. Cf. Fry v. Taylor, supra; Larus v. Bank of Commerce & Trust Co., supra. Such a holding would be directly contrary to the rationale of will contests as an in rem proceeding that public policy demands be speedily pursued to final judgment that is conclusive upon the world. In Reeves v. Hager, 101 Tenn. 712, 50 S.W. 760 (1899), Hager purchased land from the beneficiary in a will probated in common form, which was attacked and set aside fifteen years after probate and eight years after the sale to Hager. Holding Hager to be an innocent purchase for value, the Court said, in part:
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