Salvation Army v. Bank of Am.

• Citation: 435 S.W.3d 661
• Decision Date: 11 March 2014
• Docket Number: No. WD 76464.,WD 76464.
• Court: Court of Appeal of Missouri (US)
• Parties: The SALVATION ARMY, KANSAS and Western Missouri Division, Appellant, v. BANK OF AMERICA, et al., Respondents.

435 S.W.3d 661

The SALVATION ARMY, KANSAS and Western Missouri Division, Appellant,

v.BANK OF AMERICA, et al., Respondents.

No. WD 76464.

Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District.

March 11, 2014.

Barry L. Pickens and Mark A. Cole, Overland Park, KS, for Appellant.

Robert J. Selsor and Lauren W. Cohen, St. Louis, MO, for Respondent Bank of America.

Michael R. Ong, Leawood, KS, for Respondents Groves.

Before Division I: CYNTHIA L. MARTIN, Presiding Judge, and MARK D. PFEIFFER and KAREN KING MITCHELL, Judges.

MARK D. PFEIFFER, Judge.

Appellant Salvation Army, Kansas and Western Missouri Division (“the Salvation Army”), appeals the judgment of the Circuit Court of Jackson County, Missouri (“trial court”) dismissing its petition to contest a will that had been admitted to probate on the grounds that the Salvation Army lacked standing. We affirm.

Factual and Procedural Background ¹

On October 2, 2009, William E. Cunningham, Jr. (“Decedent”) died. On February 22, 2010, a will executed by Decedent on July 10, 1995 (“1995 Will”), which was accompanied by an inter-vivos trust agreement executed on the same day, was presented to the probate division of the trial court. On March 15, 2010, the 1995 Will was admitted to probate, and letters testamentary were issued naming Respondent Bank of America (“Bank of America”) as the personal representative of Decedent's estate. The first notice of the granting of letters testamentary was published on March 30, 2010.

On September 20, 2010, Decedent's heirs at law, his nieces and nephew (“the heirs”), filed a petition contesting the 1995 Will, claiming undue influence on the part of the 1995 Will's beneficiaries, Respondents Harold and DorothyMae Groves (“the Groveses”). Bank of America was served with the heirs' petition on October 28, 2010.

On November 17, 2010, in response to the heirs' petition, Bank of America presented a prior will, executed by Decedent in 1984 (“the 1984 Will”), which named the Salvation Army as a beneficiary (the Salvation Army was not a beneficiary under the 1995 Will). Although Bank of America maintained that the 1995 Will was valid, it alleged that, if the 1995 Will and its stated revocation of the 1984 Will were to be found invalid, the 1984 Will would operate to preclude the claims of the heirs at law.

On February 23, 2011, the trial court granted the Salvation Army leave to intervene as an additional plaintiff challenging the 1995 Will. On June 29, 2011, the Salvation Army filed its petition contesting the 1995 Will. On July 20, the Groveses and Bank of America filed responsive pleadings to the Salvation Army's petition; at that time, neither the Groveses nor Bank of America alleged that the 1984 Will was not timely presented to the trial court, though the Groveses denied that the 1984 Will was valid. On April 24, 2012, the heirs voluntarily dismissed their claims with prejudice, leaving the Salvation Army as the only remaining party challenging the 1995 Will.

On June 11, 2012, the trial court entered a stipulated scheduling order setting a date for trial and a deadline of November 5, 2012, for the filing of dispositive motions. On January 23, 2013, the Groveses filed a dispositive motion seeking a ruling that the Salvation Army lacked standing ² to pursue the will contest action challenging the 1995 Will. A pretrial conference was held on January 24, 2013, where the trial court heard argument from counsel for the Groveses and for the Salvation Army on the Groveses' motion. The trial court determined that it would consider the Groveses' dispositive motion, and at the request of the trial court, additional letter briefing was provided by the parties on the issue of whether the Salvation Army had standing to contest the 1995 Will. On February 1, 2013, the trial court entered a judgment of dismissal dismissing the Salvation Army's will contest petition, finding that the Salvation Army lacked standing to contest the 1995 Will since its only claim to the estate was under the 1984 Will, which had not been presented to the trial court within the time limits prescribed by section 473.050.3. ³

On March 1, 2013, the Salvation Army obtained assignments from the heirs, who had voluntarily dismissed their claims with prejudice nearly a year earlier. The Salvation Army then filed a motion to amend the judgment alleging, inter alia, that it had standing to contest the 1995 Will, even if the trial court had correctly found that the 1984 Will was not timely presented, in that the heirs at law had assigned their rights to the Salvation Army, and the heirs' voluntary dismissal of their petition was ineffective as it was entered without obtaining the consent of the Salvation Army, who was a party to the action at the time of the purported voluntary dismissal. The trial court denied the motion. The Salvation Army appeals.

Standard of Review

This court reviews the granting of a motion to dismiss de novo. Coons v. Berry, 304 S.W.3d 215, 217 (Mo.App.W.D.2009). The trial court dismissed the Salvation Army's petition because it determined that, because the 1984 Will was not presented within the time limits prescribed by section 473.050.3, the 1984 Will was “forever barred” from the trial court's consideration; because the 1984 Will was the only avenue for the Salvation Army to have any claim to Decedent's estate, the trial court concluded that the Salvation Army lacked standing. Interpretation of statutory provisions and their application to the facts of a case are legal issues that this court reviews de novo. McKinney v. State Farm Mut. Ins., 123 S.W.3d 242, 245 (Mo.App.W.D.2003). Standing is also a question of law that this court reviews de novo. CACH, LLC v. Askew, 358 S.W.3d 58, 61 (Mo. banc 2012). “[I]n reviewing a judgment of dismissal, this court must affirm the dismissal ‘if it can be sustained on any ground which is supported by the motion to dismiss, regardless of whether the circuit court relied on that ground.’ ” State ex rel. Div. of Child Support Enforcement v. Hill, 53 S.W.3d 137, 143 (Mo.App.W.D.2001) (quoting Keys v. Nigro, 913 S.W.2d 947, 951 (Mo.App.W.D.1996)). “In fact, [i]f the court correctly dismissed the [claim], the ground upon which the dismissal was based is immaterial.” Id. (internal quotation omitted).

Analysis

I

In its first point, the Salvation Army argues that “the trial court erred in dismissing [Salvation Army's] claims for lack of standing because [Salvation Army] plead[ed] sufficient facts to establish standing to contest the 1995 Will in that [the Groveses] waived their statute of limitations defense by failing to raise it in any responsive pleading.” (Emphasis added.)

Missouri's will presentment statute, section 473.050.5, provides that if a will is “not presented ⁴ for probate during the time limitations provided in subsection 3, [it] is forever barred from admission to probate in [Missouri].” In pertinent part, section 473.050.3 provides:

3. No proof shall be taken of any will nor a certificate of probate thereof issued unless such will has been presented within the applicable time set forth as follows:

(1) In cases where notice has previously been given in accordance with section 473.033 [i.e., through publication] of the granting of letters on the estate of such testator, within six months after the date of the first publication of the notice of granting of letters, or within thirty days after the commencement of an action under section 473.083 [i.e., will contest action] to establish or contest the validity of a will of the testator named in such will, whichever later occurs[.]

First, we note that the Salvation Army's arguments in support of its first point conflate the concept of standing with the concept of subject matter jurisdiction. The Salvation Army relies upon State ex rel. Unnerstall v. Berkemeyer, 298 S.W.3d 513 (Mo. banc 2009). So do we.

[I]t is incorrect to cast statutory arguments as matters of subject matter jurisdiction. J.C.W. ex rel. Webb v. Wyciskalla, 275 S.W.3d 249, 254 (Mo. banc 2009). There is no question of jurisdiction in this case; the circuit court, which in this case has a probate division, has subject matter jurisdiction to admit or reject a will to probate.

Id. at 517–18. Thus, the decision to admit or reject a will is clearly a matter within the subject matter jurisdiction of the trial court. With that, we agree. Where the Salvation Army's logic breaks down is when it argues that the holding in Unnerstall necessarily requires us to conclude that “statutes cannot affect standing.” While a statute directed at a court's authority may not implicate the court's jurisdiction, it does not preclude a court from exercising its jurisdiction to evaluate its authority to address substantive issues of a party's case (i.e., standing). More specifically, on the interaction between the concepts of subject matter jurisdiction and standing, our Supreme Court recently noted in Schweich v. Nixon:

Although sometimes referred to in terms of jurisdiction ... the concept of standing is better understood as a matter of justiciability, that is, of a court's authority to address a particular issue when the party suing has no justiciable interest in the subject matter of the action. For this reason, Missouri courts before and after the decision in [ Webb ], have held that standing is a prerequisite to the court's authority to address substantive issues [with respect to that party].... See, e.g., CACH, 358 S.W.3d at 61 (reaffirming that “[c]ourts have a duty to determine if a party has standing prior to addressing the substantive issues of the case.”).

408 S.W.3d 769, 774 n. 5 (Mo. banc 2013).

Here, as in Unnerstall, the trial court exercised its jurisdiction to make a decision about whether to admit or reject the 1984 Will in relationship to the requirements outlined in chapter 473. Upon doing so, the trial court concluded that no proof of the 1984 Will would be taken, as the 1984 Will was “forever barred” from...