Soames v. Gifford (In re Soames)
| Decision Date | 23 June 2022 |
| Docket Number | S-21-0257 |
| Citation | 2022 WY 79 |
| Parties | IN THE MATTER OF THE ESTATE OF CHARLES GEORGE SOAMES, deceased: v. DICK GIFFORD, former Personal Representative, Appellee (Respondent). CYNTHIA E. SOAMES, Personal Representative, Appellant (Petitioner), |
| Court | Wyoming Supreme Court |
Appeal from the District Court of Big Horn County The Honorable Bill Simpson, Judge
Representing Appellant: Larry B. Jones of Burg Simpson Eldredge Hersh &Jardine, P.C., Cody, Wyoming.
Representing Appellee: Thomas P. Keegan of Keegan &Krisjansons, P.C., Cody, Wyoming.
Before FOX, C.J., and KAUTZ, BOOMGAARDEN, GRAY, and FENN JJ.
[¶1] Cynthia E. Soames, personal representative of her brother's estate, filed a motion for an order to show cause against the estate's previous personal representative, Dick Gifford. Ms. Soames' motion alleged that certain items went missing from the estate while Mr Gifford was personal representative and requested that he be made to account for those items. The probate court held a show cause hearing and subsequently denied the motion thereby declining to hold Mr. Gifford in contempt. In its order, the court found Mr. Gifford's testimony credible and concluded that Ms. Soames had failed to meet her burden of proving that Mr. Gifford took, and failed to return, the items. Ms. Soames appeals the court's credibility ruling. We affirm.
[¶2] Ms. Soames raises one issue, which we rephrase: Did the probate court err when it found Mr. Gifford's testimony credible?
[¶3] Mr. Gifford, a Wyoming realtor, had been acquainted with Charles George Soames (Charles) both personally and professionally since Charles first moved to Wyoming in the 1970s. In May 2019, Mr. Gifford received a phone call from a nurse at a Denver hospital informing him that Charles was non-responsive and on life support. Mr. Gifford, unaware whether Charles had any family and believing he was the only person the hospital could find that knew him, told the nurse he did not object to the hospital's proposed course of treatment-discontinuing life support. Charles died on May 19, 2019.
[¶4] Mr. Gifford knew where Charles kept his spare key and began tending to his house after his death. Mr. Gifford testified that he cleaned, hauled out garbage, and regularly checked on the house.[1] Because he did not find a will or any indication that Charles had any living family, he also provided information for Charles' death certificate, collected his mail, paid a few of his bills, looked for his safety deposit box key, and consulted with Charles' banker, Stan Lundberg, on financial matters. In the time he was caring for the house, he testified that he borrowed a floor jack from the garage to fix a tire on his vehicle, he took two guns for safe-keeping after he suspected there had been a break in, and he took two other guns to have them appraised.
[¶5] Mr. Gifford consulted his attorney, Randy Royal, who recommended he file a petition for letters of administration. Mr. Gifford's petition stated that Charles had "no known next of kin" and that "due search and inquiry" had been made to locate a will but none had been found. The court issued Mr. Gifford letters of administration and appointed him personal representative of the estate in August.
[¶6] Upon becoming the personal representative, Mr. Gifford had Charles' safety deposit box drilled open. Among other things, the box contained Charles' will, which identified his twin sister, Ms. Soames, as his sole heir. Mr. Gifford obtained Ms. Soames' phone number through information and called to tell her that her brother had died in May and left her his entire estate. Ms. Soames, who lived in Indiana, was shocked by the news, and arranged travel to Wyoming with her cousin, Luther Boggan, to handle the estate.
[¶7] When Ms. Soames and Mr. Boggan arrived in Wyoming later that summer, Mr. Gifford met them at the airport and drove them to Charles' house. Ms. Soames and Mr. Gifford's relationship was tense from the start. Ms. Soames believed that Mr. Gifford was reluctant to turn over the estate to her, and Mr. Gifford felt that Ms. Soames was accusatory and blamed him for not getting in touch with her sooner. While Ms. Soames and Mr. Boggan were in Wyoming, Mr. Gifford returned the floor jack and the guns, and gave her the items from the safety deposit box and a box of Charles' belongings from the hospital, which included clothes and his wallet.[2]
[¶8] While going through Charles' estate, Ms. Soames used his computer to access "a detailed list of everything he had in [his] house." She testified that she knew this list existed because Charles had previously given her a copy and told her "this is everything I own, if anything happens, this is what I have." Ms. Soames began comparing the list against the items she found in Charles' home. In September, she met with Sheriff Kenneth Blackburn and Deputy Shane Brost because she felt that items were missing, she was uncomfortable with Mr. Gifford, and she did not understand why he was ever involved in the first place.[3]After showing the officers Charles' list and telling them she believed that Mr. Gifford had taken items from the house, she served Mr. Gifford with a criminal trespass notice prohibiting him from entering Charles' property.
[¶9] Ms. Soames replaced Mr. Gifford as the personal representative in December 2019. In July 2020, she filed an inventory and appraisal of estate assets. With that filing, she included a list she had compiled of items she asserted were missing from the estate, claiming she "was very familiar with personal property [Charles] had in his possession at his home on or before the date he passed away." The list was four pages long and included numerous items, such as specific pieces of jewelry and clothing, coins, food, kitchen items, outdoor gear, tools, and office supplies.
[¶10] Ms. Soames filed her motion for an order to show cause in November 2020 and attached the same list of missing items. Her motion alleged that Mr. Gifford was the only person with access to the house, he was seen removing things from the house, he admitted that he removed certain items from the house, and he returned some of the items. She then requested that he be ordered to "show cause as to why all property located on or about the decedent's residential real property is missing or to provide evidence as to its whereabouts[.]" Mr. Gifford responded and generally denied the allegations. Later that month, the court issued an order to show cause and set a hearing on the matter.
[¶11] The hearing took place in March 2021. Sheriff Blackburn, Deputy Brost, Mr. Spann, Mr. Gifford, Mr. Royal, Ms. Soames, Mr. Boggan, and Mr. Lundberg all testified. At the close of evidence, Ms. Soames argued that the case was "pretty straightforward" and that Mr. Gifford was not credible because his testimony was odd, inconsistent, and sometimes did not make sense. Conversely, Mr. Gifford argued that he was the one who found the will, he immediately contacted Ms. Soames, he was happy to turn over the responsibility, and he retained none of the estate property. He maintained that he should not be held in contempt because the case was "complete nonsense" and based on pure "speculation and conjecture."
[¶12] Following the hearing, the court denied Ms. Soames' motion and "decline[d] to find Mr. Gifford in contempt." Ms. Soames appealed.
[¶13] To establish contempt, Ms. Soames had to show that: 1) there was an effective court order requiring certain conduct by Mr Gifford; 2) Mr. Gifford had knowledge of the order; and 3) Mr. Gifford willfully disobeyed the order. See Breen v. Black, 2020 WY 94, ¶ 11, 467 P.3d 1023, 1027 (Wyo. 2020) (citing Kleinpeter v. Kleinpeter, 2017 WY 76, ¶¶ 1011, 397 P.3d 189, 193 (Wyo. 2017)). Ms. Soames had the burden of proving these elements by clear and convincing evidence. Id. ¶ 12, 467 P.3d at 1027 (citing McAdam v. McAdam, 2014 WY 123, ¶ 14, 335 P.3d 466, 470 (Wyo. 2014)).
[¶14] Following the show cause hearing, the probate court concluded that the first two elements were satisfied because Mr. Gifford was required by court order to properly fulfill the duties of a personal representative in compliance with the probate code. It further concluded, however, that Ms. Soames had failed her burden to prove that Mr. Gifford disobeyed that court order by taking and failing to return estate property. It found that Ms. Soames had failed to prove that the items she listed as missing were still owned by Charles at the time of his death-it was unclear when Charles had created his list, and Ms. Soames had not seen him in almost twenty-five years and had never been to his home. The court reasoned that Charles "could have sold or given away, or lost some or all of the items." And, it noted that Mr. Gifford testified he never saw "most of the items listed as missing" and "[h]e returned the items he testified he took for safekeeping." Though it observed that "Mr. Gifford's testimony was contradictory and confusing at times[,]" it also found that he was credible.
[¶15] Ms. Soames now argues the probate court erred when it found Mr. Gifford's testimony credible. She makes several different arguments to this point, claiming Mr. Gifford's "testimony was rife with falsehoods and inconsistencies" and "simply not believable."[4] Additionally, she claims that had the court not made this "erroneous" credibility finding, it would have properly concluded that the lists she entered into evidence were reliable and sufficient to prove that the missing items were in Charles' estate when he died and therefore must have been removed from the house by Mr. Gifford, in violation of his personal representative duties.
[¶16] Because the lower court is in the...
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