Telesetsky v. Wight

• Decision Date: 18 September 1985
• Citation: 482 N.E.2d 818,395 Mass. 868
• Parties: Barbara TELESETSKY v. Ann WIGHT et al., 1 administrators.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

Page 818

482 N.E.2d 818

395 Mass. 868

Barbara TELESETSKY v. Ann WIGHT et al., ¹ administrators.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts,

Middlesex.

Argued Jan. 9, 1985.

Decided Sept. 18, 1985.

George P. Lordan, Jr., (Marilyn Kimball with him) Salem, for plaintiff.

Harold W. Potter, Jr., Boston, for defendant.

Before HENNESSEY, C.J., and WILKINS, LIACOS, NOLAN and O'CONNOR, JJ.

LIACOS, Justice.

The plaintiff, Barbara Telesetsky, filed a notice of claim against the defendants, Ann Wight and Stephen Wight, coadministrators of the estate of Philip D. Wight. The defendants sent a notice of disallowance of the claim, and the plaintiff filed a petition for payment. A judge of the Probate Court ruled on a submitted statement of agreed facts that the defendants properly disallowed the claim and dismissed the petition. The plaintiff filed a notice of appeal, and we allowed her application for direct appellate review. We are asked to interpret some of the provisions of G.L. c. 197, § 9 (1984 ed.). This statute governs the presentation of claims against an estate of a decedent and the manner by which they are allowed and disallowed.

The parties agreed to the following material facts which we now summarize. Philip D. Wight died on June 10, 1982. The defendants, Ann Wight and Stephen Wight, were appointed coadministrators of the estate; their bonds were approved on October 8, 1982. On January 27, 1983, the plaintiff filed a notice of claim against the estate in the Probate and Family Court for Middlesex County, and mailed copies to the coadministrators. The claim stated that the estate was indebted to the plaintiff in the sum of "$12,500 or a trust fund, plus furniture."

An administrator has sixty days after the four-month period which runs from the date of the approval of the bond to act on a claim. The administrators did not act on the claim during this sixty-day period. Their failure to act resulted in the allowance of the creditor's claim. ² By a letter dated April 28, 1983, the administrators notified the plaintiff in the seventh month that her claim was disallowed. The notice of disallowance was void of any warning of the impending bar to the commencement of suit by the plaintiff if suit was not commenced within sixty days from the disallowance of the claim. ³ On July 7, 1983, the plaintiff filed a petition for payment in the Probate Court under G.L. c. 197, § 9, sixth par. ⁴ The administrators, who refused to make payment, answered that the claim had been properly disallowed and, accordingly, should be dismissed. The Probate Court dismissed the petition. The plaintiff has never commenced an action in a court of competent jurisdiction against the estate of Philip D. Wight.

On appeal, the plaintiff argues that the Probate Court erroneously dismissed her petition because the administrators' disallowance of her claim in the seventh month following approval of their bonds was ineffective under G.L. c. 197, § 9. She asserts that the administrators' failure to act on her notice of claim within the prescribed statutory period constituted an automatic and irrevocable allowance of her claim. She claims that to interpret the statute in any other manner would defeat the purpose of the Legislature in amending § 9. ⁵ In addition, the plaintiff claims that the purported notice of disallowance was ineffective due to its failure to warn of the requirement of G.L. c. 197, § 9, first par., that a suit on a disallowed claim must be commenced within sixty days after the mailing of a notice of disallowance. ⁶

In reply, the administrators contend that § 9 grants them the authority to disallow the plaintiff's claim after the sixty-day period for disallowing claims has expired. The administrators argue that they are only limited in making such a disallowance by the nine-month period specified in § 9, first par. (b), and second par. The administrators also argue that regardless of the above, the Probate Court lacks jurisdiction under § 9, sixth par., to adjudicate the merits of the plaintiff's claim and properly dismissed her petition.

We agree that an administrator properly may change the allowance of a claim to a disallowance of that claim after the sixth month, but conclude that, to be effective, the notice of disallowance must contain a warning of the impending bar for failure to commence suit within sixty days of the notice of disallowance. The administrators failed to include the warning in the notice. See note 3 supra. We conclude, therefore, that the notice of disallowance was ineffective. We conclude, further, that in the circumstances of this case the plaintiff is not entitled to have her claim treated as automatically allowed. The plaintiff, however, should be allowed to initiate legal proceedings in a court of proper jurisdiction to prove her claim, provided she initiates the action within sixty days after the entry of the rescript in the Probate Court.

Central to the resolution of this controversy is the interpretation of G.L. c. 197, § 9. The text must be afforded its plain meaning when it is clear and unambiguous. Bronstein v. Prudential Ins. Co., 390 Mass. 701, 704, 459 N.E.2d 772 (1984), and cases cited. When ambiguities are present, however, "a statute must be interpreted according to the intent of the Legislature ascertained from all its words construed by the ordinary and approved usage of the language, considered in connection with the cause of its enactment, the mischief or imperfection to be remedied and the main object to be accomplished, to the end that the purpose of its framers may be effectuated." Commonwealth v. Galvin, 388 Mass. 326, 328, 446 N.E.2d 391 (1983), quoting Board of Educ. v. Assessor of Worcester, 368 Mass. 511, 513, 333 N.E.2d 450 (1975). At the same time, a statute should be read as a whole to produce an internal consistency. See 2A C. Sands Sutherland Statutory Construction § 46.05 (1984).

In 1976, the Legislature rewrote G.L. c. 197, § 9. ⁷ This amendment was part of an omnibus probate reform bill adapted from the Uniform Probate Code (U.P.C.) and jointly filed by the Boston Bar Association and the Massachusetts Bar Association. ⁸ The drafters of the bill proposed the changes for the obvious purpose of expediting the probate process and the settlement of estates. See Young, Probate Change, 20 B.B.J. 6 (Dec., 1976); Sprague v. O'Connell, 18 Mass.App. 230, 233, 464 N.E.2d 404 (1984). The 1976 amendment represents an effort to expedite the handling of claims against an estate and to ensure fairness in their settlement, to reduce costs, to avoid traps for unwary creditors, and to promote a faster settlement of estates. Additionally, an objective of the legislation was to bring Massachusetts laws into closer conformity with the laws of other jurisdictions. See Project, supra at 575-598; Young, Probate Reform, 18 B.B.J. 7, 15 (March 1974); Uniform Probate Code, 8 U.L.A. Art. III, part 8, general comment (1983). The main purpose of the legislation, however, appears to be to achieve speedier settlement of estates, for the benefit of both claimants and heirs or beneficiaries.

General Laws c. 197, § 9, provides two separate methods for creditors to present claims against an estate. The statute retains the traditional adversary method of instituting an action at law against the estate in the Superior Court or District Court. See G.L. c. 197, § 9, first par. (b) and second par. ⁹ Under this traditional method a creditor must commence the action within the short statute of limitations period of no earlier than three months and no later than nine months after the executor or administrator posts his bond. G.L. c. 197, §§ 1, 9, first par. (b).

The amendment of § 9 by St.1976, c. 515, § 15, created an alternative system to operate concurrently with the adversary method. A creditor may now present a claim directly to the administrator within four months after the approval of his bond. Receipt of the claim by the administrator tolls the nonclaim statute and shifts the burden to act to him. G.L. c. 197, § 9, first par. (a), second par. Under the provisions of § 9, third par., the administrator may notify the creditor that the claim has been allowed or disallowed. If the administrator fails to give notice of disallowance to the claimant within sixty days following the expiration of the four-month period running from the date of the approval of his bond, it "shall have the effect of a notice of allowance."

Under this nonadversary method, a claim can be allowed without court intervention. Utilizing the adversary method, however, necessitates a court judgment (§ 9, fourth par.), before a creditor can bring a petition for payment of an allowed claim in the Probate Court under § 9, sixth par., which authorizes orders for the payment of claims that have been allowed either expressly or by operation of law and of judgments on claims that have been litigated in another court. See Sprague v. O'Connell, supra at 235, 464 N.E.2d 404. Clearly, the nonadversary method of presentment promotes the purpose of the amendment to expedite the settlement of estates.

The Massachusetts system for the presentation of claims has been closely modeled on the U.P.C. ¹⁰ The major difference between the two is that the U.P.C. provides a single limitation period regardless of which method of presentment a creditor employs, whereas the Massachusetts statute retains the nine-month limitation period for the adversary system. While each affords a creditor the opportunity to elect between two methods of presentment, an administrator has only one manner in which to disallow a claim properly filed under the nonadversary system. The administrator may disallow the claim by issuing notice to the claimant. The notice must contain an express warning that the creditor has sixty days in which to commence an action at law or the claim is barred. ¹¹ An administrator is also permitted to change a previously allowed claim to a...