IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

No. 15-20520

Summary Calendar

SEQUOIA DI ANGELO, 

 Plaintiff–Appellant,

versus

WELLS FARGO BANK, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION; 

GIOVANNINA CANTALE, 

 Defendants–Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the Southern District of Texas

Before REAVLEY, SMITH, and HAYNES, Circuit Judges.

JERRY E. SMITH, Circuit Judge:

Sequoia Di Angelo appeals a summary judgment in favor of Wells Fargo

Bank, National Association (“Wells Fargo”). She raises two issues: first, that

the district court should have applied Texas rather than California law; and 

second, that there are genuine disputes of material fact that preclude summary 

judgment. We find no error and affirm.

United States Court of Appeals

Fifth Circuit

FILED

April 29, 2016

Lyle W. Cayce

Clerk

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I.

On July 28, 2013, Martin Schmidt (“Schmidt”) and his son Denali

Schmidt died in an avalanche while attempting to become the first father-son 

team to climb K2, the second highest mountain on earth. Soon thereafter, 

Di Angelo received news of the deaths and obtained a copy of a will that her 

father had signed in New Zealand in 2010. The will contained a provision leaving the money in Schmidt’s U.S. bank accounts to “to my son DENALI MARTIN VALDEMAR SCHMIDT and my daughter SEQUOIA DIANGLEO [sic] 

equally if both are living at my death but if only one of them is living at my 

death then to that one.”

On September 1, 2013, Di Angelo went to a Houston branch of Wells 

Fargo seeking information on her father’s bank accounts. She was told that 

Wells Fargo could not share any information without copies of her father’s 

death certificate and will. She informed a bank employee that her stepmother, 

Giovannina Cantale, who lives in New Zealand, might try to withdraw the 

funds and asked the representative to place a note in the bank’s records indicating that Di Angelo was making a claim on the funds. The employee refused 

but assured Di Angelo that no one could access the funds without copies of her 

father’s death certificate and will. The employee also said that court intervention would be necessary given the amount of the funds.

On November 11, Di Angelo visited the same branch with copies of the 

death certificate and will but was told that there were no active accounts. 

When Di Angelo returned in December, a different employee told her that her 

stepmother had emptied and closed her father’s accounts from a Wells Fargo 

branch in California.

Di Angelo sued Wells Fargo in Texas state court for negligence, promissory estoppel, and conversion. Wells Fargo removed to federal court, which 

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granted summary judgment based on California Probate Code § 13106(a), 

which discharges the holder of funds “from any further liability with respect to 

the money or property” upon receipt of an affidavit conforming to certain statutory requirements.

II.

Di Angelo contends that summary judgment was improper because 

Texas rather than California law governs and because there are genuine disputes of material fact. We disagree. 

To begin, Di Angelo has waived her objection, on choice-of-law grounds,

to the applicability of Section 13106(a). In the district court, Di Angelo maintained only that § 13106(a) is not fatal to her claim because Wells Fargo had 

actual notice of her allegedly superior claim to Schmidt’s accounts and that, 

under Texas law, her oral notice sufficed to give Wells Fargo “actual notice.” 

Di Angelo never claimed, as she does now on appeal, that choice-of-law rules 

require application of Texas law to events that occurred in California. To the 

contrary, she conceded that California law applies to events occurring in 

California, positing only that Texas law governs whether her interactions with 

Wells Fargo’s Houston employees provided the bank with actual notice of her 

claims.

Given the applicability of California law, there is no genuine dispute of 

material fact. Section 13106(a) discharges the holder of funds “from any further liability with respect to the money or property” upon receipt of an affidavit 

conforming to the requirements of Sections 13100 through 13104 of the 

California Probate Code. “The holder may rely in good faith on the statements 

in the affidavit or declaration and has no duty to inquire into the truth of any 

statement in the affidavit or declaration.” CAL. PROB. CODE § 13106(a).

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Di Angelo reasons, however, that―§ 13106(a) notwithstanding―Wells 

Fargo may still be liable because it had actual notice of her claim to the funds. 

In Mautner v. Peralta, 215 Cal. App. 3d 796 (1989), a bank received written 

notice of a claim by the California Veterans Home (the “Home”) to the funds in 

a decedent’s account under California’s Military and Veterans Code 

§ 1035.05(b), which made the Home the decedent’s statutory heir. The bank, 

however, later distributed the funds to a beneficiary of the will. When the 

Home sued, the bank claimed immunity from liability under the predecessor 

statute to § 13106(a). The state appellate court rejected that argument because the Home had a superior statutory claim and could not participate in the 

Probate Code’s typical affidavit/declaration procedures for small estates. The 

court thus created an exception to immunity where the holder of funds has

actual notice of a superior statutory claim.

We agree with the district court a quo that the situation in Mautner is 

not comparable to the one here and thus that Di Angelo cannot have recourse 

to the judicially-created “actual notice” exception to § 13106(a) immunity. No 

statute gives Di Angelo a claim to Schmidt’s bank accounts superior to claims

deriving from testate succession, as was the case in Mautner. Because 

Di Angelo has failed to probate her father’s will, the only statutory claim that 

she may possibly have is under California’s laws of intestate succession, which 

give a decedent’s surviving children a share in the estate not passing to the 

decedent’s surviving spouse. See CAL. PROB. CODE §§ 6401, 6402. A claim 

under the laws of intestacy, however, is inferior to a claim under the laws of 

testate succession, and it is questionable whether a claim to a percentage of an 

estate equates to a claim to specific assets in the estate, like the Wells Fargo 

bank accounts at issue here. We further note that Di Angelo has waived any 

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argument based on intestate succession by failing to raise the issue in the 

district court or in her briefs on appeal.

Given these facts, we hold that it is immaterial whether Di Angelo gave 

Wells Fargo actual notice or whether she reasonably and detrimentally relied 

on any representation by Wells Fargo’s Houston employees. The California 

legislative scheme grants Wells Fargo immunity from any injury that 

Di Angelo may have suffered from the disbursement of funds to her stepmother. See CAL. PROB. CODE § 13106(a). 

If Di Angelo has indeed been injured, she must proceed directly against 

the person to whom Wells Fargo disbursed the money, namely, her stepmother.1 What Di Angelo seeks—to have Wells Fargo make a double payment, 

once to her and once to her stepmother—is precisely what California law

denies. 

The summary judgment is AFFIRMED.2

 

1 See CAL. PROB. CODE § 13110(a) (“[E]ach person to whom payment, delivery, or 

transfer of the decedent’s property is made under this chapter is personally liable to the 

extent provided in Section 13112 to any person having a superior right by testate or intestate 

succession from the decedent.”).

2 Wells Fargo’s opposed motion for leave to file an additional brief is DENIED.

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