Quintana v. Brennan (In re Estate of Wagner)
| Decision Date | 17 December 2020 |
| Docket Number | A154747 |
| Parties | Estate of ALLAN DAVID WAGNER, Deceased. DIANA QUINTANA, Petitioner and Appellant, v. LAURA BRENNAN, Objector and Respondent. |
| Court | California 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NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.
(Alameda County Super. Ct. No. RP17871276)
Allen David Wagner died suddenly in 2017, unmarried, childless and without a registered domestic partner. He was survived by his live-in partner of almost 30 years, Diana Quintana, and his relatives, including his sister, Laura Brennan. Quintana petitioned the probate court to, among other things, admit into probate as Wagner's will a 2006 document that he prepared and signed as part of his renunciation of his right to serve as a personal representative of his mother's estate, and Brennan objected. If the document is a will, Wagner's estate would be left to Quintana; if it is not, it would pass intestate to relatives, including Brennan. The question before us is whether, contrary to the probate court's ruling, Quintana has shown by clear and convincing evidence that this 2006 document was Wagner's will. We conclude that she has made this showing and reverse.
In August 2017, Quintana filed a petition, which she later supplemented, in Alameda County Superior Court for the probate of a lost will regarding Wagner's estate, which she estimated had a value of $888,143. She asked the court to admit two possible wills into probate.
First, Quintana asked the court to admit a 2012 unsigned partnership agreement between Wagner and herself. In a supporting declaration, she stated she had been Wagner's "life partner" since 1989, and that they often had told each other that they wanted all their worldly possessions to go to the other upon their death. In December 2011, they discussed formalizing this commitment in a written partnership agreement, including with friends such as Michael Mitchner and Paulette Landry. Working from an online form, they drafted a Domestic Partnership Agreement (2012 Agreement). It stated that neither had any rights regarding the real or personal property owned by the other, but that, "in the event of death," "[t]he total owned by one partner shall transfer to the other without question."
Quintana stated that she and Wagner signed the 2012 Agreement in January 2012 and filed it away in a box with other important papers. However, she attached only an unsigned copy of the 2012 Agreement to her declaration. She wrote that the couple accidentally disposed of the only signed version after a water leak in their garage had caused boxes stored there to become water soaked and moldy. The couple disposed of these boxes, and Quintana did not discover until after Wagner's passing that among them had been the box containing the signed 2012 Agreement. She printed out anunsigned copy of the 2012 Agreement from the family computer on which she and Wagner had drafted it.
Mitchner and Landry, long-time friends of Wagner, also submitted supporting declarations. Mitchner stated that Wagner and Quintana had a decades-long, close and loving relationship; that in December 2011, Wagner told Quintana regarding the 2012 Agreement, " 'If anything ever happens to me everything is yours"; that in early 2012, Wagner told Mitchner "the paperwork had all been signed"; and that Mitchner had "absolute certainty that [Wagner] had every intention that his estate go to Diana Quintana." Landry stated that Wagner and Quintana "were a loving and devoted couple" who in December 2011 told her they were going to draft and sign an agreement to leave each other all that they owned. In January 2012, Wagner showed her the signed 2012 Agreement "and said words to the effect that 'Diana will not have to worry if something happens to me.' "
Quintana subsequently supplemented her petition to contend that she recently had discovered a typed document entitled "September 2006 RENUNCIATION" regarding the "Estate of Margaret Rita Wagner" (2006 Renunciation). Quintana stated that Wagner's mother had died in September 2006, and Wagner "did not want to serve as Executor because the estate was heavily loaded with debt and he was worried that if the estate did not have enough money to pay the debt that he would become personally liable for the debt." She further stated that Wagner sent the 2006 Renunciation to his mother's Personal Representative, "reiterating his renunciation of his parent's estate and stat[ing] that all his assets would transfer upon his death to me. [Wagner] wanted to make his testamentary intent clear to his family by telling them that upon his death everything thathe had in life was being given to me." She attached a signed copy of the 2006 Renunciation to her supporting declaration. The body of it states:
1
Quintana also declared that on October 2, 2006, Wagner "signed a notarized document entitled 'Renunciation' with regard to his declination to serve as the personal Representative" of his mother's estate." She attached to her declaration a copy of this second renunciation document. The document, notarized in Pennsylvania, states, "And now, comes Allan Wagner, Personal Representative of the Estate of Margaret Rita Wagner, deceased September 25, 2006, and he renouncing any right to be appointed Personal Representatives concerning his mother's estate, and he further consents to the appointment of his sister, Lynn Chadderton, as Personal Representatives in his stead."
Quintana argued that the court should admit into probate as Wagner's will either the 2012 Agreement or the 2006 Renunciation.
In April 2018, the court held an evidentiary hearing to determine whether the 2006 Renunciation or the 2012 Agreement should be admitted into probate as Wagner's will. The hearing focused on whether the court should admit either document under Probate Code section 6110 (section 6110). Section 6110 provides that a will "shall be in writing" and "shall be signed." (§ 6110, subds. (a), (b).) Furthermore, a will "shall be witnessed by being signed" unless "the proponent of the will establishes by clear and convincing evidence that, at the time the testator signed the will, the testator intended the will to constitute the testator's will." (§ 6110, subd. (c)(1), (2).) Quintana presented the testimony of several witnesses, as well as certain documents. Brennan did not present any evidence.
Mitchner and Landry provided testimony that was consistent with their declarations. They focused on Quintana and Wagner's longstanding, close and loving relationship and the couple's discussion and creation of the 2012 Agreement around the 2012 New Year. Neither Mitchner nor Landry testified about reviewing the content of a signed copy of the 2012 Agreement, but Landry testified that soon after the 2012 New Year, Wagner showed her an agreement that was signed. Both also testified that Wagner was not close to his family and that none of his family members attended his funeral. A third friend also testified that Quintana and Wagner had a longstanding, close and loving relationship.
Quintana also gave testimony that was consistent with her declarations. She testified that Wagner, she and her then almost four-year-old daughter began living together about two months after she and Wagner met in 1989. Wagner worked for a water district, eventually as a water treatment supervisor. He retired and then returned to work until he died. Quintana worked and went to school. The couple rented their home until 2009, when they purchased a house in Fremont, California. Although in 1990 Wagner asked and received her mother's permission to marry Quintana, they did not marry because "[w]e got so busy in life."
Regarding the couple's finances, Quintana testified that Wagner's work compensation eventually reached six figures a year, while Quintana's was as high as $70,000 a year. She and Wagner "put in together on everything from the very beginning." At first, they kept separate checking accounts, but then shared one account. They split equally the cost of the rent and, later, the mortgage, but the house was purchased in Wagner's name "for tax purposes." They also split equally the rest of their expenses, such as for groceries and utilities. They both took care of her daughter, and together paid for the child's college education. As indicated in the 2012 Agreement, they agreed that, "while we are living and breathing and on God's green earth, we kept everything the same way we have always done because it worked for us," but that, should one of them die, "then the other would have totally every possession" of the other. Wagner also agreed to take care of Quintana's daughter in the event of Quintana's death.
Evidence was also introduced that Wagner filed paperwork with his lender authorizing Quintana to...
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