Title: IN THE MATTER OF THE ESTATE OF SNEED

State: oklahoma

Issuer: Oklahoma Supreme Court

Document:

IN THE MATTER OF THE ESTATE OF SNEED  IN THE MATTER OF THE ESTATE OF SNEED 1998 OK 8 953 P.2d 1111 69 OBJ 482 Case Number: 86054 Decided: 01/27/1998 Mandate Issued: 02/19/1998 Supreme Court of Oklahoma IN THE MATTER OF THE ESTATE OF LORITA J. SNEED, DECEASED, KAY DONNA HALL, Appellant, vs. MICHAEL JESTES, Appellee. [953 P.2d 1113] CERTIORARI TO THE COURT OF CIVIL APPEALS, DIVISION I, APPEAL FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF OKLAHOMA COUNTY; HONORABLE CAROL HUBBARD, JUDGE. ¶ 0After the district court, sitting in probate, found (1) that the testatrix possessed testamentary capacity and (2) that she had not been unduly influenced in the making of her last will and testament by the appellee's acts, the court ordered that her will be admitted to probate. Contemporaneous with its admission, the court severed Exhibit "A" from the document and transferred it to the district court's chief judge so that a district court in the exercise of its general remedial authority might determine if the exhibit, standing alone, created an inter vivos trust. When it was ruled that the exhibit's provisions did not meet the statutory requirements for creating such a trust, the will's proponent successfully moved to have the exhibit's terms incorporated by reference into the will. The contestant objected to the exhibit's incorporation urging that it was the product of undue influence. The Court of Civil Appeals upheld the court's order. The contestant sought review by certiorari. On certiorari previously granted, THE COURT OF CIVIL APPEALS' OPINION IS VACATED AND THE DISTRICT COURT'S PROBATE ORDER IS AFFIRMED; APPELLEE'S MOTION FOR APPEAL-RELATED ATTORNEY FEES IS DENIED. Drew Campo, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, for the appellant. Conner L. Helms of Woska, Hasbrook, Dowd, Underwood & Helms, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, for the appellee. Lavender, J. ¶1 The primary question before us is whether the district court's decision - to incorporate an exhibit by reference into Lorita J. Sneed's [Sneed or deceased] [953 P.2d 1114] earlier-admitted last will and testament - is against the clear weight of the evidence. Also at issue is whether Donna Kay Hall [Hall, contestant or appellant] is entitled to a new hearing to decide whether Michael Jestes1 [Jestes, proponent or personal representative] unduly influenced Sneed in the making of the incorporated exhibit. I PROCEDURAL FACTS AND HISTORY ¶2 On August 22, 1990 Lorita Sneed executed a last will and testament. She died in March 1992. Under her will's terms all of her property, both real and personal, was devised to Michael Jestes, as trustee, with instructions that he distribute the same under the terms of Exhibit "A" to the will. ¶3 Although the exhibit attached to the will was dated August 20, 1990, there is evidence that its "trust" provisions were originally drafted on August 17, 1990. The exhibit purports to reflect the testatrix's "living will wishes." Jestes testified that he acted as Sneed's scrivener in the exhibit's preparation and did nothing more than record her decisions about how her assets were to be distributed.2 ¶4 The testatrix died without issue. Under the dispositive provisions [as found in Exhibit "A"] of the Sneed will her estate is devised to (a) the heirs of her deceased brother [Kenneth Hall], i.e, the contestant and her two children, (b) the children of her deceased step-brother [Marlin Marsh], (c) Jestes and his sister and (d) various other friends and her church. The contestant and her children were the principal beneficiaries under the decedent's will, although the devises to Marlin Marsh's children and Jestes and his sister were each close in amount to the quantum given the contestant and her children. ¶5 The decedent's will was prepared by her lawyer of many years and was executed in his office. Although Jestes was present when the will was executed, he did not serve as one of its witnesses. Since Exhibit "A" to the will contains the dispositive provisions for Sneed's estate and it is specifically referenced in the will, her lawyer obviously reviewed the exhibit's terms when he drafted the document. Nonetheless, the record does not reflect any discussions between the lawyer and the testatrix about the will or its exhibit's provisions except on the day of the will's execution when the testatrix acknowledged before its witnesses that the document represented her dispositive wishes.3 ¶6 On October 19, 1993 Jestes petitioned the district court to probate Sneed's will. Hall objected to its admission urging (1) that her aunt was of diminished mental capacity and suffered from insane delusions and (2) that Sneed's free agency had been overborne by Jestes' undue influence. In the summer of 1994 the trial court, sitting in probate, conducted a hearing on Sneed's testamentary capacity and the issue of undue influence. This hearing was held before the exhibit in issue was bifurcated from the will. During this proceeding the contestant examined Jestes about (a) his relationship with Sneed, (b) his role in the preparation of Exhibit "A", and (c) the execution of the decedent's last will and testament. It was also at this time that Jestes' counsel requested that Exhibit "A" be severed from the will and transferred to a division of the district court with the authority to determine if its provisions satisfied the requirements for the establishment of a valid inter vivos trust. In its August 30, 1994 order the trial court (sitting in probate) found that Exhibit "A" was "not being offered as either a testamentary disposition [or] as a residuary disposition under the residuary clause" of Sneed's will. Also, it found that Exhibit "A" was not being offered as a testamentary trust under the will's terms and that it [the court sitting in probate] did not have the remedial capacity to ascertain the instrument's validity as an inter vivos trust. At [953 P.2d 1115] the conclusion of the July 1994 hearing the latter issue was severed from the probate proceedings and transferred to the Chief Judge, Civil Division, Oklahoma County District Court. The district court - in an exercise of its remedial powers - concluded that the exhibit's provisions did not meet the statutory requirements necessary to establish an inter vivos trust. ¶7After the district court ruled that the exhibit's provisions failed to create an inter vivos trust, the will's proponent moved to incorporate by reference the document's terms into Sneed's will. By its August 11, 1995 order the court allowed the requested incorporation and denied the contestant's motion for a hearing on the issue of the proponent's undue influence in the exhibit's preparation. It is from this latter order that Hall brings her appeal. The Court of Civil Appeals upheld the district court's decision. The appellant then sought certiorari which was granted. II THE STANDARD OF REVIEW ¶8 Probate proceedings are of equitable cognizance. II SNEED WAS POSSESSED OF TESTAMENTARY CAPACITY ¶9 Testamentary capacity exists when a person possesses, in a general way, the ability to appreciate the character and extent of the devised property, understands the nature of the relationship between themselves and the objects of their bounty and apprehends the nature and effect of the testamentary act. ¶10 From the record it is apparent that until the very end of Sneed's life she was a self-reliant person with an independent will. She lived alone, drove her own car until the time of her death, mowed her own lawn, managed rental properties which she owned, and on occasions - contemporaneous to the execution of her will - managed a dentist's business office while he was out of town. The conveyances, IV THE DOCTRINE OF CLAIM PRECLUSION (RES JUDICATA) CANNOT BE BASED ON THE DISTRICT COURT'S JULY 6, 1994 ORDER SINCE THAT ORDER WAS NOT FINAL ¶11 Sneed's last will and testament, when proffered to the district court for admission, consisted of two pages plus Exhibit "A". When it was suggested by the will's proponent that the district court, sitting in probate, did not have "jurisdiction" to determine whether the terms of Exhibit "A" actually created an inter vivos trust, the district court by its July 6, 1994 order bifurcated the exhibit from the will - concluding that Exhibit "A" was not then being "offered" as a testamentary disposition, a residuary disposition or as Sneed's will. In this same order the district court judge, in reference to Exhibit "A", stated, "[A]ny rulings thereon will be reserved pending a[n] adjudication by the district bench as to its validity and operational effect of the instrument itself . . . ." ¶12 The July 6, 1994 order's language makes clear that the district court, sitting in probate, intended to reserve consideration of what effect, if any, should be given Exhibit "A" in the event it should be determined that its provisions did not create an inter vivos trust. This order - insofar as it concerns Exhibit "A" - is interlocutory and not final. By its July 6, 1994 ruling the district court merely found that the proponent was not offering the exhibit as a testamentary disposition. The issue of what legal effect, if any, would be extended to the exhibit's terms was reserved until after the district court had determined if the exhibit's provisions created an inter vivos trust. ¶13 The doctrine of claim preclusion operates to bar relitigation by the parties or their privies of issues which either were or could have been litigated in a prior action which resulted in a final judgment on the merits. ¶ 4 The criteria for incorporation of an extraneous instrument into a will by reference are: (1) the document must be in existence when the will is executed, (2) the will's text must reasonably identify the instrument, and (3) the reference must show the testatrix's intention to incorporate the document into her will or "at least [the] intention that the instrument should operate with [the] will in disposing of property left [953 P.2d 1117] . . . at death." V THE DISTRICT COURT'S REFUSAL TO CONDUCT A NEW HEARING ABOUT WHETHER SNEED'S WILL (WITH THE INCORPORATED EXHIBIT "A") WAS THE PRODUCT OF UNDUE INFLUENCE DID NOT DENY THE CONTESTANT DUE PROCESS ¶15 Initially it must be said that a district court judge who is assigned a case is deemed to have read all pleadings and paperwork in the file unless the contrary is affirmatively demonstrated by the record. The contestant would have us assume that the Honorable Carol Hubbard, Judge, District Court, Oklahoma County, did not familiarize herself with all of the materials in the court's file - including the transcripts of the earlier hearing on the issues of (a) Sneed's testamentary capacity and (b) undue influence, filed with the court on June 26, 1995 - when she denied the contestant another hearing on undue influence. ¶16 Minimum standards of due process require that the district court, sitting in probate, afford the contestant an opportunity to be heard on the issues of Sneed's testamentary capacity and undue influence. VI THE DISTRICT COURT'S INCORPORATION OF EXHIBIT "A" INTO SNEED'S WILL IS NOT CLEARLY CONTRARY TO THE WEIGHT OF THE EVIDENCE ¶17 Undue influence is that degree of influence which destroys the testatrix's free agency and must occur at the time when the will is executed to be condemnable. [953 P.2d 1118] ¶18 The contestant would have the district court, sitting in probate, presume that Sneed's will was the product of Jestes' undue influence. Hall urges that she should have been given the benefit of a rebuttable presumption of undue influence ¶19 The foundational facts upon which a court could predicate a finding that the presumption of undue influence is applicable are not demonstrated by the record in this matter. Sneed's bequest to Jestes and his sister is not unnatural as that term is used in assaying the availability of the presumption of undue influence. Nor does her testamentary scheme result in strangers receiving all of her property. VII THE APPELLEE'S MOTION FOR AN APPEAL-RELATED COUNSEL-FEE AWARD IS DENIED ¶20 The appellee seeks an appeal-related counsel fee award under the terms of Okla.Sup.Ct.R. 1.14. VII SUMMARY ¶21 Because each of the law's requirements for incorporation of Exhibit "A" by reference into Sneed's will are fully satisfied, the district court's decision to do the same is legally correct. Our standard of review requires that we further assay the validity of the district court's probate order to determine that it is not clearly contrary to the weight of the evidence. ¶22 Based upon an assessment of the facts detailed in the record there is nothing in Sneed's will which is inconsistent with her obligations or affections during the latter part of her life. She did not disinherit her blood relatives, i.e., the contestant and her children who are the principal beneficiaries under her will's terms. The other heirs are either her kindred, friends or her church. ¶23 In its establishment of the will's factum the district court determined that Sneed possessed the requisite mental capacity to execute her will and that her free agency was not overborne by the will's proponent. Almost two years intervened between the will's execution and Sneed's death. During this time Sneed not only conducted her own business affairs in an independent fashion but she also managed them in a manner consistent with and supportive of the dispositive intentions reflected in her will. On this record the district court's decision to admit Sneed's will to probate with the terms of Exhibit "A" incorporated into it is clearly not contrary to the weight of the evidence. On certiorari previously granted, THE COURT OF CIVIL APPEALS' OPINION IS VACATED AND THE DISTRICT COURT'S PROBATE ORDER IS AFFIRMED; APPELLEE'S MOTION FOR APPEAL-RELATED ATTORNEY FEES IS DENIED. ¶24 KAUGER, C.J., HODGES, LAVENDER, HARGRAVE, OPALA and WILSON, JJ., concur. ¶25 SUMMERS, V.C.J. and WATT, J., concur in result. ¶26 SIMMS, J., dissent. FOOT