SUPREME COURT OF ARIZONA 

 EN BANC 

 

NANCY MAY, ) Arizona Supreme Court 

 ) No. CV-04-0025-PR 

 Petitioner, ) 

 ) Court of Appeals 

 v. ) Division One 

 ) No. 1 CA-SA 03-0283 

HON. LINDSAY ELLIS, JUDGE PRO TEM ) 

OF THE SUPERIOR COURT OF THE ) Maricopa County 

STATE OF ARIZONA, in and for the ) Superior Court 

County of Maricopa, ) No. PB2002-002519 

 ) 

 Respondent Judge, ) 

 ) 

JACK DAVID and SHANNON DAVID, ) O P I N I O N 

 ) 

 Real Parties in Interest. ) 

 ) 

__________________________________) 

Petition for Review from the Court of Appeals, 

Division One, No. 1 CA-SA 03-0283 

Special Action from the Superior Court of Maricopa County 

The Honorable Lindsay Ellis, Judge 

No. PB2002-002519 

VACATED AND REMANDED 

GOLDMAN & KAPLAN, LTD. Phoenix 

 By: Morris A. Kaplan 

 Mark E. Meltzer 

Attorneys for Petitioner 

DYER & FERRIS, L.L.C. Phoenix 

 By: Scott R. Ferris 

 Charles J. Dyer 

 Charles M. Dyer 

Attorneys for Real Parties in Interest 
H U R W I T Z, Justice 

¶1 The issue in this case is whether life insurance 

proceeds paid to a decedent’s spouse are exempt from claims of 

creditors of the estate. We hold the proceeds are exempt from 

creditors’ claims pursuant to Arizona Revised Statutes 

(“A.R.S.”) § 20-1131 (2002). 

I. 

¶2 Nancy May survived her husband James Edward May, who 

died on April 21, 2002. Nancy petitioned the superior court to 

probate her late husband’s estate and was appointed personal 

representative. She subsequently filed an estate inventory, 

revealing that the estate contained no assets. At the time of 

James May’s death, a civil suit was pending against the Mays in 

superior court. The suit, filed by Jack and Shannon David, 

alleged that the Mays engaged in fraud and odometer rollback 

when selling them an automobile. 

¶3 The Davids filed a claim against the estate in the 

probate proceeding. The superior court allowed the claim, 

contingent upon the determination that James was liable to the 

Davids. Relying on A.R.S. § 14-6102 (Supp. 2003), which 

restricts a non-probate transferee’s claim to certain assets in 

favor of the decedent’s creditors, the Davids filed a motion in 

the probate court requesting disclosure of James’s non-probate 

assets. The court ordered Nancy to file an amended inventory, 

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including non-probate assets. The amended inventory revealed 

two life insurance policies, each in the amount of $500,000. 

Nancy was the named beneficiary on each policy. 

¶4 The Davids filed a motion to restrict or bond the life 

insurance policy proceeds. The superior court granted the 

motion. Nancy, however, had already exhausted the policy 

proceeds. The court then found Nancy in contempt and ordered 

her to provide an accounting of her expenditures, warning her 

that failure to provide a proper accounting could result in her 

removal as personal representative and incarceration. 

¶5 In November 2003, Nancy filed an unaudited accounting 

of her expenditures. On December 3, 2003, the superior court 

nonetheless reaffirmed its contempt order and took under 

advisement the issue of whether a forensic accounting was 

necessary.1

 On December 12, Nancy filed a special action in the 

court of appeals, which declined jurisdiction. Nancy then 

petitioned this court for review of the order of the court of 

appeals declining special action jurisdiction, asking us to 

decide whether, under A.R.S. § 14-6102(A), the proceeds from the 

two life insurance policies can be used to pay her late 

husband’s creditors or whether, under A.R.S. § 20-1131(A), these 

proceeds are beyond the creditors’ reach. 

 

1

 At a status conference in January 2004, the superior court 

ordered Nancy to provide a forensic accounting.

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¶6 We granted review of this purely legal question 

because the issue is one of first impression and is of statewide 

importance. The court has jurisdiction pursuant to Article 6, 

Section 5(3) of the Arizona Constitution, Arizona Rule of Civil 

Appellate Procedure 23, and A.R.S. § 12-120.24 (2003). 

II. 

¶7 Since 1954, Arizona law has provided that proceeds of 

life insurance policies payable to beneficiaries other than the 

decedent are exempt from claims against the decedent’s estate: 

When a policy of life insurance is effected by any 

person on his own life or on another life in favor of 

some person other than himself having an insurable 

interest therein . . . the lawful beneficiary thereof 

. . . shall be entitled to its proceeds against the 

creditors and representatives of the person effecting 

the same. 

A.R.S. § 20-1131(A) (added by 1954 Ariz. Sess. Laws, ch. 64, § 

31). Notwithstanding A.R.S. § 20-1131(A), the superior court 

apparently concluded that this case was controlled instead by 

A.R.S. § 14-6102(A), enacted as part of an amendment of the 

Arizona probate code to conform with certain 1998 revisions in 

the Uniform Probate Code (“UPC”), 2001 Ariz. Sess. Laws, ch. 44, 

§ 12. Section 14-6102(A) provides: 

Except as otherwise provided by law, a transferee of a 

nonprobate transfer is subject to liability to the 

decedent’s probate estate for allowed claims against 

the decedent’s probate estate and statutory allowances 

to the decedent’s spouse and children to the extent 

the decedent’s probate estate is insufficient to 

satisfy those claims and allowances. 

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See also A.R.S. § 14-6101(A) (1995) (defining a “provision for a 

nonprobate transfer on death in any insurance policy” as 

“nontestamentary”). 

¶8 While the superior court did not explain its 

reasoning, it appears that the judge agreed with the argument 

advanced by the Davids that § 14-6102(A), the later enacted 

statute, was meant to render the exemption in § 20-1131(A) 

inapplicable to the extent that the assets in the decedent’s 

estate were insufficient to satisfy creditors’ claims. In 

advancing that argument, the Davids rely primarily on UNUM Life 

Insurance Co. of America v. Craig, 200 Ariz. 327, 26 P.3d 510 

(2001). 

¶9 UNUM involved a dispute over the proceeds of life 

insurance policies. As the court noted, 

[t]here are currently in force two statutes governing 

distribution of insurance proceeds upon simultaneous 

or near-simultaneous deaths. The one [A.R.S. § 14-

2702] requires survival by 120 hours; the other 

[A.R.S. § 20-1127] requires that the beneficiary meet 

a more subjective standard of proof with complex 

evidence that the beneficiary survived the insured if 

only by a few moments. 

Id. at 333 ¶ 29, 26 P.3d at 516. Because the named beneficiary 

in UNUM survived the insured only by moments, the statutes were 

in irreconcilable conflict. Id. We therefore turned to the 

legislative history of the two provisions at issue. Id. at 330-

33 ¶¶ 14-27, 26 P.3d at 513-16. We concluded that in adopting 

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the UPC, which contains the 120 hours requirement in § 14-2702, 

the legislature implicitly repealed the conflicting provision in 

§ 20-1127. Id. at 333 ¶ 29, 26 P.3d at 516. We therefore held 

that § 14-2702, requiring survival by 120 hours, was “the 

applicable rule of survival for a designated beneficiary of an 

insurance policy.” Id. at 335 ¶ 38, 26 P.3d at 518. 

¶10 Although we concluded in UNUM that the two statutes 

could not be harmonized, we recognized that our first duty when 

confronted with such claims of conflict is to “adopt a 

construction that reconciles one with the other, giving force 

and meaning to all statutes involved.” Id. at 333 ¶ 28, 26 

P.3d at 516. In this case, we have no difficulty in doing so. 

¶11 Section 14-6102(A), the UPC provision, begins with a

critical phrase: “Except as otherwise provided by law.” Thus, 

§ 14-6102(A), which allows a decedent’s creditors to look to 

non-probate transfers to satisfy their claims, only applies when 

there is no other “law” to the contrary. Section 20-1131(A) is 

precisely such a “law.” It expressly provides that life 

insurance proceeds are not subject to creditors’ claims. 

Therefore, life insurance proceeds are not among the non-probate 

transfers available to satisfy the claims of creditors under § 

14-6102(A). 

¶12 Because there is no facial conflict between §§ 14-

6102(A) and 20-1131(A), the superior court erred in concluding 

6
that the former somehow implicitly repealed the latter. See 

UNUM, 200 Ariz. at 329 ¶ 11, 26 P.3d at 512 (noting our duty to 

“harmonize” the language of purportedly conflicting statutes in 

order “to give effect to each”). Indeed, the official comments 

to the UPC directly buttress this conclusion. The comment to 

UPC § 6-102, the counterpart of A.R.S. § 14-6102, expressly 

provides that 

[t]he initial clause of subsection (b), “Except as 

otherwise provided by statute,” is designed to prevent 

a conflict with and to clarify that this section does 

not supersede existing legislation protecting death 

benefits in life insurance, retirement plans or IRAs 

from claims by creditors. 

UPC § 6-102 cmt. 2. When, as here, “a statute is based on a 

uniform act, we assume that the legislature intended to adopt 

the construction placed on the act by its drafters,” and 

“[c]ommentary to such a uniform act is highly persuasive.” 

UNUM, 200 Ariz. at 332 ¶ 25, 26 P.3d at 515 (internal citation 

omitted). 

III. 

¶13 For the reasons above, we hold that the life insurance 

proceeds paid Nancy are not part of James’s estate, and 

therefore are not subject to the Davids’ claims. The superior 

court’s orders requiring an accounting of those proceeds and its 

7
order of contempt are vacated, and this case is remanded for 

further proceedings consistent with this opinion.2

 

 Andrew D. Hurwitz, Justice 

CONCURRING: 

 _

Charles E. Jones, Chief Justice 

 ______

Ruth V. McGregor, Vice Chief Justice 

 _

Rebecca White Berch, Justice 

 _

Michael D. Ryan, Justice 

 2 The Davids seek attorneys’ fees, citing A.R.S. § 14-

1302(B) (Supp. 2003). Because they are not the prevailing 

parties, we deny the claim. 

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