Regalado v. Estate of Regalado (In re Estate of Regalado)
| Decision Date | 26 March 2013 |
| Docket Number | No. 64A03–1207–ES–322.,64A03–1207–ES–322. |
| Parties | In re the ESTATE OF Joseph James REGALADO. Victor C. Regalado, Appellant–Petitioner, v. The Estate of Joseph James Regalado, and Paula Heffelfinger, Appellees–Respondents. |
| Court | Indiana Appellate Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from the Porter Superior Court; The Honorable Jeffrey L. Thode, Special Judge; Cause No. 64D02–0410–ES–9659.
Steven M. Bush, Millbranth and Bush, Valparaiso, IN, Attorney for Appellant.
Andrew Lucas, Hugo Martz, Valparaiso, IN, Attorneys for Appellee/Personal Representative 1st Source Bank.
Victor Regalado, an heir to the Estate of Joseph J. Regalado (“the Estate”), appeals the trial court's order granting a motion to correct error on the basis of newly discovered evidence filed by Paula Heffelfinger. Following remand from an earlier appeal, the trial court entered summary judgment in favor of Victor concluding that Paula, Joseph's purported half-sister, was not an heir to the Estate as there was no genuine issue of fact as to Paula's paternity. Essentially, the trial court determined that Paula's paternity could not be established in Joseph's father, Baltasar Regalado, because paternity had already been established in another man. Shortly thereafter, Paula filed a motion to correct error based upon newly discovered DNA evidence regarding paternity. Following a hearing, the trial court granted Paula's motion to correct error and set aside its previous order granting summary judgment in favor of Victor.
On appeal, Victor contends that the trial court abused its discretion when it determined that the DNA evidence constituted newly discovered evidence pursuant to Indiana Trial Rule 59(A)(1). Victor also contends that, pursuant to the doctrines of collateral estoppel and law of the case, Paula should be precluded from further litigating the issue of her heirship. Finding no abuse of discretion and further finding that neither collateral estoppel nor law of the case applies, we affirm and remand for further proceedings.
This Court has outlined the relevant factual background as follows:
In 1991, Joseph suffered serious and permanent brain damage as the result of an altercation with officers of the Chicago Police Department. Joseph was thereafter adjudicated a disabled person, and his father, Baltasar Regalado, served as his guardian. On Joseph's behalf, Baltasar brought a federal lawsuit against the City of Chicago for the actions of its police officers, and in December 2000, the claim was settled for fifteen million dollars.
Baltasar and Joseph later moved to Porter County, Indiana, where Joseph died intestate in October 2004. At the time of his death, Joseph owned no real property but had eight to nine million dollars of personal property located in Indiana. Because Joseph left no surviving spouse or issue, according to Indiana Code section 29–1–2–1(d)(3) his estate is to be distributed to his surviving parents, brothers, sisters, and issue of his deceased brothers and sisters. A few days after Joseph's death, Baltasar filed a Petition for the Appointment of Administrator and for Supervised Administration, which listed himself as well as Joseph's brothers Chris, Martin, Victor, David, and Tony as Joseph's known heirs. The petition also listed among Joseph's known heirs Paula as his half-sister.
Paula was born in October 1967 to Carmen Nadine Durea, who is not Joseph's mother. Carmen and Baltasar married in Arizona in April 2003, when Paula was thirty-five years old. During the marriage, Carmen lived in Arizona and Baltasar lived in Indiana. Baltasar instituted annulment proceedings in Indiana in 2005. In the proceedings, Baltasar and Carmen signed an Agreed Order of Annulment, the preface of which states, “The subject matter of this Agreement is the settlement of the respective rights of Husband and Wife to all property, both real and personal, now in their name and/or possession, and any property which may come into their possession as a result of inheritance.” Within the Agreed Order of Annulment, Baltasar acknowledged Paula as his biological daughter: “Both parties readily acknowledge that Paula Heffelfinger is their natural daughter, fathered by the Petitioner and born to the Respondent on October 13, 1967.” The trial court entered an Order of Annulment in November 2005.
Regalado v. Estate of Regalado, 933 N.E.2d 512, 516–17 (Ind.Ct . App.2010) (citations and footnotes omitted).
In October 2008, one of Joseph's brothers, Victor, filed a petition to determine heirship, which alleged that Paula was not Joseph's half-sister and requested a hearing on the matter. Paula filed a motion for summary judgment and designation of evidence arguing that she is Joseph's sibling as a matter of law. Victor responded contending that Paula failed to conclusively establish that Baltasar is her biological father. Following a hearing, the trial court entered an order finding Paula to be Joseph's sibling and thus granting her motion for summary judgment. Victor filed a motion to correct error, which was denied by the trial court. Thereafter, Victor filed an appeal with this Court.
On appeal, we were confronted with an issue of first impression as to whether a child must show that she is born out of wedlock before Indiana Code Section 29–1–2–7, which governs the intestate succession of children born out of wedlock, can be applied.1Id. at 521–22. Concluding that the plain language of that statute requires a child to indeed show that she is a child born out of wedlock, we determined that Paula had not designated sufficient evidence to show that there is no genuine issue of material fact that she is a child born out of wedlock. Id. at 523. We further concluded that a genuine issue of material fact remained as to whether Baltasar is Paula's biological father. Therefore, we concluded that the trial court erred in granting summary judgment in Paula's favor. Accordingly, we reversed and remanded.
Upon remand, Paula filed a motion for Baltasar to submit to a paternity test. On July, 6, 2011, the trial court denied Paula's motion, in part, because it determined that Paula's paternity had long been established in a man named William Piffer, the father listed on Paula's birth certificate and confirmed in a 1971 Illinois divorce decree between her mother and Piffer. Paula filed a motion to correct error, which the trial court denied. On July 29, 2011, Victor filed a motion for summary judgment against Paula's heirship arguing that Paula cannot establish paternity in Baltasar and that paternity had already been established in Piffer. Paula filed a response to the motion as well as an amended motion to correct error accompanied by an affidavit of Piffer in which Piffer averred that he did not believe that he is Paula's biological father and that he was willing to submit to a DNA test to prove that he is not her biological father. Appellant's App. at 116. A hearing was held on both motions on January 30, 2012. On March 28, 2012, the trial court entered an order denying Paula's motion to correct error and granting Victor's motion for summary judgment. Specifically, the trial court concluded that there was no genuine issue of material fact as to Paula's paternity.
On April 26, 2012, Paula filed a motion to correct error based upon newly discovered material DNA evidence. Paula attached DNA test results indicating that there is a 0% possibility of Piffer's paternity regarding Paula.2 Following a hearing, on June 20, 2012, the trial court entered an order granting Paula's motion to correct error and setting aside its previous order granting summary judgment in favor of Victor. This appeal followed.
We begin by noting that Paula has not filed an appellee's brief. 3 When a party fails to submit a brief, we will not undertake the burden of developing arguments for that party. Thurman v. Thurman, 777 N.E.2d 41, 42 (Ind.Ct.App.2002). Instead, we apply a less stringent standard of review and may reverse if the appellant establishes prima facie error. In re Paternity of B.N.C., 822 N.E.2d 616, 618–19 (Ind.Ct.App.2005). Prima facie error is error at first sight, on first appearance, or on the face of it. Id. at 619. An appellee's failure to file a brief, however, does not relieve us of our obligation to correctly apply the law to facts in the record in order to determine whether reversal is required. Vandenburgh v. Vandenburgh, 916 N.E.2d 723, 725 (Ind.Ct.App.2009).
Victor appeals from the trial court's order granting Paula's motion to correct error. We review a trial court's ruling on a motion to correct error for an abuse of discretion. Id. An abuse of discretion occurs when the trial court's decision is against the logic and effect of the facts and circumstances before it or the court has misinterpreted the law. Scales v. Scales, 891 N.E.2d 1116, 1118 (Ind.Ct.App.2008). The trial court's decision comes to us cloaked in a presumption of correctness, and the appellant has the burden of proving that the trial court abused its discretion. Page v. Page, 849 N.E.2d 769, 771 (Ind.Ct.App.2006). In making our determination, we may neither reweigh the evidence nor judge the credibility of the witnesses. Id. Instead, we look to the record to determine if the trial court abused its judicial discretion, a flagrant injustice has been done to the appellant, or the appellant has made a very strong case for relief. Id.
Paula's motion to correct error was based upon newly discovered evidence. Specifically, to support her argument that a genuine issue of material fact remains as to her paternity, Paula produced DNA test results indicating that Piffer, her mother's husband at the time of her birth, is not her biological father. Although submitted prior to the motion to correct error but incorporated by reference, Paula submitted Piffer's affidavit in which ...
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