Title: State ex rel. Abraitis v. Gallagher

State: ohio

Issuer: Ohio Supreme Court

Document:

[Cite as State ex rel. Abraitis v. Gallagher, Slip Opinion No. 2015-Ohio-2312, 2015-Ohio-
2312.] 
 
 
 
 
 
NOTICE 
This slip opinion is subject to formal revision before it is published in 
an advance sheet of the Ohio Official Reports.  Readers are requested 
to promptly notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of Ohio, 
65 South Front Street, Columbus, Ohio 43215, of any typographical or 
other formal errors in the opinion, in order that corrections may be 
made before the opinion is published. 
 
SLIP OPINION NO. 2015-OHIO-2312 
THE STATE EX REL. ABRAITIS, EXR., APPELLANT, v. GALLAGHER, JUDGE, 
APPELLEE. 
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it 
may be cited as State ex rel. Abraitis v. Gallagher, Slip Opinion  
No. 2015-Ohio-2312.] 
Prohibition—Will contest and declaratory judgment— Standing— Plaintiff in 
underlying suit does not lack standing to sue—Judge has jurisdiction over 
both actions—Relator has adequate remedy by way of appeal—Dismissal 
of complaint affirmed. 
(No. 2014-1223—Submitted February 24, 2015—Decided June 16, 2015.) 
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Cuyahoga County, No. 101037,  
2014-Ohio-2987. 
_____________________ 
 
Per Curiam. 
{¶ 1} Relator-appellant, Sarunas Abraitis, appeals from the judgment of 
the Eighth District Court of Appeals dismissing his complaint for a writ of 
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prohibition.  He filed the complaint individually and in his capacity as executor of 
the estate of his mother, Vlada Abraitis, against respondent-appellee, Judge Laura 
J. Gallagher of the Probate Division of the Cuyahoga County Court of Common 
Pleas.  Abraitis sought a writ to prohibit Judge Gallagher from proceeding in a 
combined will-contest and declaratory-judgment action filed by the personal 
representative of the estate of his brother, Vytautas, his only sibling.  Abraitis 
alleges that the personal representative lacks standing to sue. 
{¶ 2} Judge Gallagher does not patently and unambiguously lack 
jurisdiction to hear the action, and Abraitis has adequate remedies at law.  We 
therefore affirm. 
Facts 
{¶ 3} Abraitis’s father died in 1992.  His mother died in 2008. 
{¶ 4} On October 5, 2011, Abraitis applied to admit his mother’s will, 
executed on June 30, 1978, to probate in Cuyahoga County.  The matter was 
assigned to Judge Gallagher.  The will named Abraitis as executor of the estate. 
The will provided that if Abraitis’s father predeceased his mother, her entire 
estate would be divided equally between Abraitis and his brother, Vytautas. 
{¶ 5} Vytautus died in November 2013 while the estate was being 
administered. His will named his former wife, Vivian, as the personal 
representative and sole beneficiary of his estate.  On December 11, 2013, a 
probate court in Florida named Vivian the personal representative of Vytautas’s 
estate.  The next day, Abraitis filed an application to probate a different will that 
his mother executed in 1993 and for which he again was named executor.  This 
later will bequeathed to him the entire estate.  His brother Vytautas would take 
under the will only if he outlived Abraitis. 
{¶ 6} In January 2014, Vytautus’s former wife, Vivian, filed the 
underlying complaint to contest the 1993 will leaving Vlada Abraitis’s estate to 
one son to the exclusion of the other.  In the same complaint, she also sought a 
January Term, 2015 
 
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declaratory judgment that a certain survivorship deed was invalid and that the 
property transferred by the deed belongs in the mother’s estate.  This action was 
also assigned to Judge Gallagher. 
{¶ 7} On February 24, 2014, Abraitis filed the complaint in this case in the 
Eighth District Court of Appeals, seeking a writ of prohibition and asserting that 
Vivian lacked standing to bring the action.  On July 2, 2014, the court of appeals 
dismissed the complaint.  Abraitis appealed. 
{¶ 8} Abraitis has filed a motion in this court to correct the caption of this 
case to reflect that he is a relator in two capacities: as executor of his mother’s 
estate and individually.  He further seeks to supplement the record with entries 
whose captions were corrected by the court of appeals.  We deny the motion.  The 
fact that Abraitis is suing in his individual capacity and as executor is explained in 
this opinion.  No change to the caption or supplementation of the record is 
warranted. 
Analysis 
{¶ 9} To be entitled to the requested writ of prohibition, Abraitis must 
establish that (1) Judge Gallagher is about to exercise or has exercised judicial 
power, (2) the exercise of that power is unauthorized by law, and (3) denying the 
writ would result in injury for which no other adequate remedy exists in the 
ordinary course of law.  State ex rel. Bell v. Pfeiffer, 131 Ohio St.3d 114, 2012-
Ohio-54, 961 N.E.2d 181, ¶ 18; State ex rel. Miller v. Warren Cty. Bd. of 
Elections, 130 Ohio St.3d 24, 2011-Ohio-4623, 955 N.E.2d 379, ¶ 12.  Abraitis 
need not demonstrate the lack of an adequate remedy if the court’s lack of 
jurisdiction is “patent and unambiguous.”  Chesapeake Exploration, L.L.C. v. Oil 
& Gas Comm., 135 Ohio St.3d 204, 2013-Ohio-224, 985 N.E.2d 480, ¶ 11. 
{¶ 10} Judge Gallagher undoubtedly took or will take judicial action in 
hearing the will-contest and declaratory-judgment case.  However, Abraitis has 
not satisfied the second and third requirements for a writ of prohibition.  Judge 
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Gallagher’s exercise of jurisdiction is authorized, and Abraitis has an adequate 
remedy by way of appeal. 
{¶ 11} Abraitis does not assert that he lacks an adequate remedy at law.  
He does not dispute that a probate court has basic statutory jurisdiction over will 
contests and declaratory-judgment actions related to estates.  His claim is that 
Vivian lacks standing to sue, that Judge Gallagher therefore patently and 
unambiguously lacks jurisdiction to proceed, and that the availability of an 
adequate remedy is therefore immaterial.  But Abraitis’s claim that Judge 
Gallagher patently and unambiguously lacks jurisdiction is without merit. 
{¶ 12} Abraitis relies heavily on Chilcote v. Hoffman, 97 Ohio St. 98, 119 
N.E. 364 (1918), in which the court held:  
 
Where a person who, in the absence of a valid will, would 
have a property interest in the estate of the deceased dies intestate 
before the time limited for the bringing of an action to contest the 
validity of an instrument admitted to probate as the last will and 
testament of the deceased, and without having brought, or by his 
conduct estopped himself from bringing, such action, the right to 
bring the same passes with his pecuniary or property interest in 
such estate, as incident thereto, to his personal representative or 
heirs at law, under the statutes of descent and distribution. 
 
(Emphasis added.)  Id. at paragraph two of the syllabus.  Abraitis appears to be 
arguing that because his brother Vytautas died without a wife or children, he has 
no “heir at law” to whom his interests under their mother’s will could pass, and 
therefore his right to contest it did not pass.  Thus, there is no one with standing to 
contest the will in his name.  The problem with this argument is that Vytautas, 
unlike the heir in Chilcote, did not die intestate. He had a will, and his estate has a 
January Term, 2015 
 
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personal representative.  Under Chilcote, his right to bring a will contest would 
pass to his personal representative, Vivian.  Thus, Abraitis has failed to show that 
Vivian’s standing is so ungrounded as to render the probate court “patently and 
unambiguously” lacking in jurisdiction.  If the probate court decides that Vivian 
has standing, Abraitis may appeal. 
{¶ 13} A related question is whether Vivian has standing to bring an 
action for declaratory judgment relating to the mother’s estate.  R.C. 2721.05 
provides: 
 
Any person interested as or through an executor, 
administrator, trustee, guardian, or other fiduciary, creditor, 
devisee, legatee, heir, next of kin, or cestui que trust, in the 
administration of a trust, or of the estate of a decedent, an infant, 
an incompetent person, or an insolvent person, may have a 
declaration of rights or legal relations in respect thereto in any of 
the following cases: 
(A) To ascertain any class of creditors, devisees, legatees, 
heirs, next of kin, or others; 
(B) To direct the executors, administrators, trustees, or 
other fiduciaries to do or abstain from doing any particular act in 
their fiduciary capacity; 
(C) To determine any question arising in the administration 
of the estate or trust, including questions of construction of wills 
and other writings. 
 
Vivian seeks a declaration that a survivorship deed improperly transferred 
property to Abraitis from his mother and that the transferred property rightly 
belongs in her estate.  This matter is at least arguably a “question arising in the 
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administration of” the estate, and Vivian at least arguably is a “person interested” 
by virtue of her potential interest in it if the 1978 will is upheld.  Whether Vivian 
actually has standing is a matter for the probate court to decide.  Any error in that 
regard may be appealed.  The availability of an alternate, adequate remedy defeats 
Abraitis’s quest for a writ against the underlying declaratory-judgment claim. 
 
{¶ 14} Abraitis further argues that Vivian is not a “person interested” for 
purposes of his mother’s estate and therefore she cannot bring a will-contest 
action in probate court. 
{¶ 15} R.C. 2107.71(A) states: 
 
(A) A person interested in a will or codicil admitted to 
probate in the probate court that has not been declared valid by 
judgment of a probate court pursuant to section 2107.084 of the 
Revised Code or that has been declared valid by judgment of a 
probate court pursuant to section 2107.084 of the Revised Code 
but has been removed from the possession of the probate judge, 
may contest its validity by filing a complaint in the probate court in 
the county in which the will or codicil was admitted to probate. 
 
{¶ 16} A “person interested” for purposes of a will contest is “[a]ny 
person who has such a direct, immediate, and legally ascertained pecuniary 
interest in the devolution of the testator’s estate as would be impaired or defeated 
by the probate of the will, or be benefited by setting aside the will * * *.”  Bloor v. 
Platt, 78 Ohio St. 46, 49-50, 84 N.E. 604 (1908).  Vivian has a pecuniary interest 
that would be defeated by the probate of the 1993 will she is contesting, because 
if it is held to be valid, she would lose any claim to her former mother-in-law’s 
estate that might pass to her under the 1978 will.  She would benefit from an 
invalidation of the 1993 will, because as her former husband’s sole beneficiary, 
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she might inherit under the 1978 will through him.  And if Judge Gallagher finds 
in Vivian’s favor, Abraitis can appeal. 
{¶ 17} In addition, Vivian is the personal representative and therefore the 
fiduciary for her former husband’s estate.  Under Ohio law she has a duty to 
collect all of the assets of the estate.  R.C. 2113.25; In re Estate of Kemp, 189 
Ohio App.3d 232, 2010-Ohio-4073, 937 N.E.2d 1102, ¶ 5. 
{¶ 18} Under the earlier will of 1978, both brothers (and now Vytautus’s 
estate) inherit the estate equally.  Under the 1993 will, only Abraitis inherits.  If 
the 1993 will is found to be invalid, therefore, Vytautas’s estate will inherit half of 
the estate, and Vivian, as sole beneficiary of her former husband, will benefit. 
{¶ 19} Abraitis’s arguments depend on the assumption that the later 1993 
will is valid and that therefore Vivian lacks any interest in his mother’s estate.  
However, we cannot assume anything about the 1993 will.  The will contest puts 
the validity of the 1993 will at issue, and only the probate court can decide if it is 
valid.  Because of her potential interest in the estate if the 1978 will is declared to 
be Vlada Abraitis’s only valid will, Vivian has standing to bring the will-contest 
and declaratory-judgment action in probate court, and Judge Gallagher has 
jurisdiction to decide the action. 
{¶ 20} Moreover, if the 1993 will is declared invalid, Abraitis may appeal, 
and therefore he has an adequate remedy at law. 
{¶ 21} We therefore affirm. 
Conclusion 
{¶ 22} Vivian has a potential interest in Vlada Abraitis’s estate and is 
therefore a “person interested” who may bring claims under both R.C. 2107.71(A) 
(will contest) and R.C. 2721.05 (declaratory judgment).  Judge Gallagher 
therefore has jurisdiction to proceed in the underlying action.  Moreover, Sarunas 
Abraitis has a right to appeal in the event of an unfavorable outcome.  The court 
below correctly dismissed Abraitis’s complaint for a writ of prohibition. 
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Judgment affirmed. 
O’CONNOR, C.J., and PFEIFER, O’DONNELL, LANZINGER, KENNEDY, 
FRENCH and O’NEILL, JJ., concur. 
_____________________ 
 
Catherine M. Brady, for appellant. 
 
Timothy J. McGinty, Cuyahoga County Prosecuting Attorney, and Charles 
E. Hannan, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appellee. 
_____________________