Stamps v. Starnes
| Decision Date | 22 December 2021 |
| Docket Number | M2021-00250-COA-R3-CV |
| Citation | 649 S.W.3d 403 |
| Parties | Virgie Katherine STAMPS v. Vickie Sharon STARNES |
| Court | Tennessee Court of Appeals |
Raymond E. Lacy, Michael R. Franz, and Mark E. Tillery, Knoxville, Tennessee, for the appellant, Virgie Katherine Stamps.
Henry D. Fincher, Cookeville, Tennessee, for the appellee, Vickie Sharon Starnes.
Frank G. Clement Jr., P.J., M.S., delivered the opinion, in which Andy D. Bennett and W. Neal McBrayer, JJ., joined.
This is a civil action by a widow against her deceased husband's daughter to set aside a 2013 warranty deed pursuant to which the husband conveyed his childhood home to his adult children from a previous marriage. The real property, located in Putnam County, Tennessee, was acquired by the decedent in 1972, fourteen years prior to the marriage to his widow. In this action against the decedent's only surviving issue, his daughter, the widow sought to, inter alia , establish a constructive or resulting trust and set aside the deed as a fraudulent conveyance pursuant to Tennessee Code Annotated § 31-1-105. The widow asserted that the conveyance was made fraudulently with an intent to defeat or reduce her claim for a distributive share of his net estate. Upon the motion of the decedent's daughter, the trial court summarily dismissed all of the widow's claims. This appeal followed. We affirm.
James D. Stamps ("Decedent") and his widow, Virgie Katherine Stamps ("Plaintiff"), were married for thirty years, from February 14, 1986, until Decedent's death on November 19, 2016. They were residents of the state of Ohio throughout their marriage and at the time of his death; however, they lived separately during the last ten years of their marriage. Decedent lived with his daughter in Troy, Ohio, during the last six months of his life.
Decedent had two children from a prior marriage. A daughter, Vickie Sharon Stamps Starnes ("Defendant"), and a son, Rickie Erman Stamps.
The real property at issue, 146 acres of farmland and a house located on Phifer Mountain in Putnam County, Tennessee ("the Property"), is where Decedent grew up with his parents. On August 5, 1972, fourteen years prior to his marriage to Plaintiff, Decedent's parents conveyed a remainder interest in the Property to Decedent, subject only to a life estate for his parents. In consideration, Decedent remitted $20,000. Following this conveyance, Decedent's parents continued living on the Property until their deaths. Decedent's mother died in 1981, five years before he married Plaintiff; his father died on June 13, 1986, four months after his marriage to Plaintiff.
Following his parents’ death, Decedent and Plaintiff traveled to the Property a few times each year to maintain and enjoy it. As Plaintiff asserted in the Complaint and stated in her affidavit, both Decedent and Plaintiff contributed time, effort, and labor to maintain the Property. All maintenance expenditures and property taxes were paid with marital funds.
In May of 2013, Decedent's son, Rickie, contacted a Cookeville, Tennessee, attorney, Margaret Noland. Rickie instructed her to prepare a warranty deed to convey the Property from Decedent to his children—Rickie Stamps and Defendant—as joint tenants with the right of survivorship. In preparation for the conveyance, Ms. Nolan was advised that Mr. Stamps was a single person and that the consideration for the conveyance was ten dollars. Once the papers were prepared, Rickie Stamps accompanied his father to Ms. Noland's office on May 14, 2013, when and where Decedent executed the warranty deed, which was promptly recorded. It is undisputed that Defendant was not involved in the preparation or execution of the warranty deed at issue.
However, Plaintiff disputes when she became aware of the 2013 warranty deed. While Plaintiff asserts that she did not know of the 2013 deed until four days after Decedent's death, November 23, 2016, Ms. Noland testified in her deposition that Plaintiff called her on October 7, 2016, to complain about the "unmarried" language in the deed. More specifically, as Ms. Nolan testified, Plaintiff complained that the deed falsely identified Decedent as a single person and alleged that the conveyance deprived her of her marital interests in the Property. Shortly thereafter, on November 19, 2016, Decedent died intestate, survived by Plaintiff and Defendant.1
Plaintiff initially stated that she filed a petition to administer her deceased husband's intestate estate in Ohio; however, she was unable to provide any details of that proceeding. Although the record contains very little information and no documentation concerning the alleged administration of Decedent's estate in Ohio, Plaintiff states that she inherited unencumbered title to all Decedent's real property in Ohio, the value of which is not in the record.2 Plaintiff acknowledges that she never filed a petition for a distributive share or elective share in Ohio or Tennessee, and she never filed a petition for ancillary administration of his intestate estate in Tennessee.
Plaintiff filed a complaint initiating this civil action on September 11, 2017, followed by an Amended Complaint on December 12, 2018. In the Amended Complaint, she generally alleged that the Property was "fraudulently transferred in contemplation of divorce and in violation of Plaintiff's marital property rights, as well as her right to an [intestate distributive] share of [her husband's] estate, and that the Decedent further made fraudulent claims within the warranty deed rendering the deed void."3 Specifically, she sought to set aside the conveyance pursuant to Tennessee Code Annotated § 31-1-105 on the ground the conveyance was made fraudulently with an intent to defeat or reduce her claim as the surviving spouse for a distributive share of his net estate and to establish a constructive and/or resulting trust.4
After Defendant filed an Answer, in which she denied all of Plaintiff's claims, and the parties engaged in discovery, Defendant filed a Motion for Summary Judgment to dismiss all claims. Following a hearing, the trial court took the matters under advisement.
In its first order, entered on April 16, 2019, the trial court reserved its ruling on Plaintiff's claims for constructive trust and fraudulent conveyance under Tennessee Code Annotated § 31-1-105 and allowed Plaintiff more time for discovery. In the same order, the court also summarily dismissed the claim for a resulting trust. The trial court explained:
The Court finds that Plaintiff admits that she did not actually make payment as part of the original transaction of purchase, nor did she incur an absolute obligation to pay as part of the original transaction of purchase. Undisputed facts establish that Plaintiff cannot prove an essential element of her claim for resulting trust. Accordingly, Defendant is granted summary judgment on this point and Plaintiff's claims for resulting trust is DISMISSED with prejudice.
(Citations omitted).
On September 30, 2019, the trial court entered a second order in which it summarily dismissed the claims of constructive trust, explaining that Plaintiff "presented no proof that would permit a finder of fact to conclude that [Defendant] ... engaged in any fraudulent, wrongful or inappropriate behavior."
In the last order, entered on February 12, 2021, the trial court summarily dismissed the claim for fraudulent conveyance under Tennessee Code Annotated § 31-1-105. The trial court held:
This appeal followed.
Plaintiff challenges the summary dismissal of three claims she asserted in the trial court: (1) her claim to establish a resulting trust; (2) her claim to establish a constructive trust; and (3) her claim to set aside the warranty deed as a fraudulent conveyance under Tennessee Code Annotated § 31-1-105.
This court reviews a trial court's decision on a motion for summary judgment de novo without a presumption of correctness. Rye v. Women's Care Ctr. of Memphis, MPLLC , 477 S.W.3d 235, 250 (Tenn. 2015). Accordingly, this court must make a fresh determination of whether the requirements of Tenn. R. Civ. P. 56 have been satisfied. Id. ; Hunter v. Brown , 955 S.W.2d 49, 50 (Tenn. 1997). In so doing, we consider the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party and draw all reasonable inferences in that party's favor. Godfrey v. Ruiz , 90 S.W.3d 692, 695 (Tenn. 2002).
Summary judgment should be granted when "the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a...
To continue reading
Request your trial