Title: BOOTH v. McKNIGHT

State: oklahoma

Issuer: Oklahoma Supreme Court

Document:

BOOTH v. McKNIGHT  BOOTH v. McKNIGHT 2003 OK 49 70 P.3d 855 Case Number: 95339 Decided: 05/13/2003 THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA JOHN R. BOOTH and THOMAS FRANK BOOTH, Plaintiffs/Appellees, v. BOBBIE JEAN McKNIGHT, Defendant/Appellant. ON CERTIORARI TO THE COURT OF CIVIL APPEALS, DIV. 1 ¶0 Two brothers sought in Lincoln County District Court to quiet title to a mineral interest by dividing it with their sister in equal one-third shares. That division was called for by the siblings' deceased mother's will, but the Craig County District Court (sitting earlier in probate) awarded the interest entirely to the sister as her fee for serving as personal representative of the mother's estate. The Lincoln County court ruled that the Craig County probate decree's mineral interest distribution was facially void for failure to afford the brothers a constitutionally adequate notice of the critical stage in the proceedings. From the Lincoln County court's decree declaring the mineral interest's distribution void on the face of the judgment roll and quieting that interest's title in the three siblings in equal shares, the sister appealed. The Court of Civil Appeals affirmed the nisi prius decree. This court granted certiorari on Sister's petition. THE COURT OF CIVIL APPEALS' OPINION IS VACATED; THE DECISION OF THE LINCOLN COUNTY DISTRICT COURT IS AFFIRMED IN PART AND REVERSED IN PART; AND THE CAUSE IS REMANDED FOR FURTHER PROCEEDINGS TO BE CONSISTENT WITH TODAY'S PRONOUNCEMENT. Karl D. Jones, Jones & Gardner, Vinita, Oklahoma, for Appellant. Dan A. Erwin, Chandler, Oklahoma, for Appellees. OPALA, V.C.J. ¶1 The certiorari petition presents two dispositive issues for this court's resolution: [1] Was the Lincoln County District Court correct in concluding that the Craig County court's probate decree is facially void insofar as it distributes the mother's mineral interest? and [2] Did the former court err in quieting the brothers' title to the mineral interest? We answer both questions in the affirmative. I THE ANATOMY OF LITIGATION ¶2 Lois Gene Booth (Mother) died testate in Craig County in 1996, survived by three children: John R. and Thomas Frank Booth, plaintiffs below (Brothers), and Bobbie Jean McKnight, defendant below (Sister). The Craig County District Court appointed Sister the personal representative of her mother's estate. Sister's final account shows the estate's residual assets to consist of $2,316.03 in Sister's lawyer's trust account and a small mineral interest (valued at $400) in a tract of land located in Lincoln County.2 ¶3 The final account's terms explicitly state that with the exception of personal representative's and attorney's fees, all claims against the estate have been paid in full. ¶4 The mailed notice consists of a single-page document, the text of which states that a final account has been filed and a hearing on that instrument is scheduled for a certain date, time, and place. The notice urges all interested persons to appear at the hearing and show cause (if any they have) why the estate should not be settled according to the final account's terms. Conspicuously absent from the Craig County probate record is any indication that Brothers were mailed a copy of the final account that was to be the subject of the final distribution hearing and the very reason it was to be held. ¶5 Neither of the brothers appeared at the final hearing. In settling the estate and distributing its assets the Craig County court ordered that all of the decedent's listed property be divided among the named heirs in equal one-third shares after payment of attorney's and personal representative's fees as well as the costs of administration. ¶6 Sometime after the estate's closing, the mineral interest began producing substantial revenue. ¶7 The brothers alleged their mother's will directs the mineral interest's division among the siblings in equal one-third shares. Although Sister's final account prayed for such a distribution, the court's decree awarded the interest entirely to her. The brothers (a) asserted that Sister's failure to give them adequate notice deprived them of property without due process and (b) complained the notice given them by the Craig County court was insufficient because Sister failed to let them know of the precise disposition she would seek there. Even had they read all the documents on file they would not have been adequately apprised of the relief she would press for at the final hearing. ¶8 The Lincoln County District Court ruled that the Craig County notice was fatally deficient by failing to satisfy the minimum standards of due process. Instead of making it clear that a different disposition would be sought, the final account on file below (and included in the record for this appeal) confirms the asset distribution to be effected will be in conformity to the will's provisions. ¶9 The Court of Civil Appeals (COCA) affirmed the Lincoln County court's decree, holding that neither the final account itself nor the notice of the hearing to be conducted informed the brothers that on their default they stood to lose the mineral interest devised to them by the mother's will. Lack of adequate notice deprived the brothers of the opportunity to appear and challenge the relief about to be sought. COCA analogized the result of the flawed final distribution hearing to a default judgment granting relief different in kind or amount from that sought by the pleadings and noted that such a judgment violates due process. In COCA's view (a) the Craig County probate decree's critical terms vary substantially from the plea for relief in Sister's requested distribution without affording advance notice to the brothers and (b) the variance is fatal because it facially offends due process. We granted certiorari. II THE LITIGATION'S PROCEDURAL POSTURE A. Collateral Attack ¶10 The brothers' quiet-title litigation collaterally attacked the Craig County probate decree. Facially valid adjudications of a district court sitting in probate stand immune from collateral attack to the same extent as any other judgment. ¶11 A valid probate decree is one which - on the face of the judgment roll - shows the presence of three required elements of jurisdiction: those of the person and subject matter as well as of the power to render the entered decree. B. Standard of Review ¶12 The Lincoln County court's ruling amounts to a declaration that, for want of adequate notice, the Craig County final distribution decree is facially void pro tanto - to the extent that it distributes the mineral interest entirely to Sister. It is that legal conclusion which stands here today for de novo review.24 When reexamining a trial court's legal rulings, an appellate court exercises plenary, independent, and non-deferential authority.25 C. Sufficiency of the Record for this Appeal ¶13 This court is called upon to review today one district court's nullity sentence pronounced upon another district court's adjudication, rested upon the latter decision's facially-apparent partial invalidity. This task can be accomplished only by examining the entire judgment roll.26 The Lincoln County record for the appeal we now review has been assembled and certified,27 but the Craig County probate's judgment roll is in disarray. It consists only of certified copies of critical documents the parties deemed indispensable for the determination of the probate decree's facial validity and of other issues raised below.28 A collateral attack - such as that brought in Lincoln County - is not designed to afford corrective relief by appeal. Its issues stand confined to a review of the assailed judgment's four corners for facial validity - a process that ordinarily can be accomplished only by resort to a complete judgment roll. ¶14 No issue will be resolved upon a critically deficient record.29 Our examination of the Craig County record is of necessity confined to instruments from that county's probate proceeding which stand included in the record for appeal and which qualify for incorporation into the judgment roll.30 While generally this court will not notice any instrument that is not a part of the appellate record,31 uncontroverted facts dehors that record which stand admitted in the parties' briefs may be considered to supplement the deficiently-assembled or incomplete judgment roll.32 ¶15 Neither party voiced here an objection to the Lincoln County court's determination of the probate decree's facial invalidity upon an incomplete judgment roll nor asserted that any missing documents, if there presented for inspection, would reveal anything contrary to the Lincoln County court's view of the probate judgment roll's condition. Nor was an objection ever raised on that ground before this court. We hence conclude the Craig County probate's judgment roll (aided by the parties' admissions in the briefs) is complete enough to warrant our pronouncement that the probate decree in contest is indeed facially void pro tanto. III THE CRAIG COUNTY PROBATE DECREE IS FACIALLY VOID PRO TANTO BECAUSE THE BROTHERS WERE ENTITLED TO NOTICE THAT WOULD APPRISE THEM OF THE NATURE OF THE ISSUES TO BE CONSIDERED AND THE CONSEQUENCES TO FOLLOW FROM THEIR DEFAULT ¶16 At early common law, land (and interests in it) devolved directly from ancestor to heir sans judicial intervention, with the title passing by descent to the heir immediately upon the ancestor's death.33 This state's law unequivocally requires that the district court, qua probate tribunal, have cognizance over all the decedent's assets, both in real and personal property.34 ¶17 A final account is in the nature of a request for distribution of any remaining estate assets, for discharge of the personal representative, and for the estate's closing. ¶18 The terms of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and those of Article 2, section 7 of the Oklahoma Constitution forbid the state from depriving any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. While the core element of due process is the right to be heard, ¶19 A probate distribution hearing is an adversarial judicial proceeding in which the personal representative and heirs (or beneficiaries) often stand in an adversarial position to one another. ¶20 Notice is a sine qua non element of personal jurisdiction, without which the court wields no authority over the persons sought to be haled before it. ¶21 In order to accomplish that task, notice must provide one with more than the naked logistics of the hearing. For intelligently framing one's defense a person must know what issues one will be confronted with. In deciding whether to appear at the hearing to defend against issues presented for resolution or default and suffer the consequences, one must at every critical stage of the proceedings be provided with (1) notice at a meaningful time and in a meaningful manner, (2) a realistic opportunity to appear and be heard, and (3) the opportunity meaningfully to participate in the proceedings. ¶22 The terms of Sister's final account state explicitly that the attorney's and personal representative's fees remain unpaid and that the estate stands ready for final asset distribution subject to those obligations. IV THE LINCOLN COUNTY COURT'S DECREE HERE UNDER REVIEW IS FACIALLY VOID PRO TANTO INSOFAR AS THAT COURT EXCEEDED ITS LIMITED AUTHORITY OVER THE CRAIG COUNTY PROBATE DECREE - AUTHORITY THAT STOOD LIMITED TO DECLARING THE PROBATE DECREE FACIALLY VOID PRO TANTO AND REMOVING THE VOID DECREE'S CLOUD UPON THE MINERAL INTEREST IN QUESTION ¶23 A probate decree (or any judgment) entered without proper notice is ipso facto facially void. ¶24 Whenever two courts of concurrent jurisdiction attempt to assert their authority over the same subject matter, the tribunal that first assumes cognizance must be allowed to wield the acquired power to the exclusion of the other. ¶25 Had there been no earlier probate proceeding in another court, a claim to quiet title to a mineral estate in Lincoln County (held by one with a muniment of title) could have been entertained in that forum. ¶26 A suit to quiet title is brought by a party who presses a claim that stands in some controversy with that of another. V SUMMARY ¶27 The probate distribution hearing triggered by a personal representative's filing of a final account is an adversarial judicial proceeding requiring a constitutionally adequate notice to all affected persons. The notice to be given must inform every party that its interest stands before a tribunal for adjudication and afford that party an opportunity to interpose a defense against the pressed result. To meet this standard the notice to be given must be reasonably calculated not only to inform the person of the hearing's logistics - date, time, and place - but also to provide sufficient information that will allow the adverse party intelligently to ascertain what issues the hearing will address, what rights are at stake, and what one stands to lose upon default through non-attendance. ¶28 Whenever a tribunal assumes probate cognizance of an estate, it acquires over its assets exclusive jurisdiction that is superior to that of any other tribunal in the state. While the Lincoln County District Court was not incorrect in declaring the Craig County probate decree facially void pro tanto (for want of constitutionally adequate notice), it lacked the power to proceed farther and quiet the mineral interest's title. To that extent it usurped the Craig County tribunal's exclusive jurisdiction over a probate asset. ¶29 The Court of Civil Appeals' opinion is vacated; the decision of the Lincoln County District Court is affirmed in part and reversed in part; and the cause is remanded for further proceedings to be consistent with today's pronouncement. ¶30 WATT, C.J., OPALA, V.C.J., HODGES, LAVENDER, HARGRAVE, SUMMERS, BOUDREAU and WINCHESTER, JJ., concur. ¶31 KAUGER, J., concurs in result. FOOT