Opinion ID: 1921907
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Alleged Forgiveness of Charles's $25,000 Debt to the Trust

Text: In April 1986, Mary transferred a certain parcel of real estate in Maine to Charles in exchange for a $25,000 demand promissory note payable to the trust. [3] Thereafter, in 1987 Mary deeded her house in Warwick to George as a gift, but she received no note or other consideration in return. AsGeorge admitted during his deposition, Mary deeded her Warwick property to him [b]ecause of [Mary's transfer of the property in Maine] that had occurred between [Mary and Charles. Mary's attorney] felt that I [George] had been slighted, and it would be fair and she had the opportunity to basically equal [things] out by giving me something. (The Maine property was apparently worth considerably more than the $25,000 note for which Mary had transferred it to Charles.) A sworn affidavit from one of Mary's close friends, H. Thomas Rowles, stated that Mary admitted deeding the Warwick home to George in 1987 as a way to even[] things up between Charlie and George, her sons. In June 1991, Mary met with Charles and his wife at their home. Charles alleged in his sworn affidavit that during this visit Mary forgave Charles the $25,000 debt owed to the trust on account of the 1986 transfer of the Maine property. Charles further averred that he understood from this meeting that Mary forgave the debt because she had given George the Warwick home as a gift and, thus, it would not have been fair to require Charles to pay $25,000 for the Maine property while George received the Warwick home free and clear for no consideration at all. Charles further asserted that George, in effect, had agreed to the discharge of his $25,000 trust indebtedness when he accepted Mary's gift to him of the Warwick property and acknowledged that this gift had been an attempt to equal things out with him after Mary had transferred the Maine property to Charles. As a result, Charles argued, George should be estopped in his capacity as a trustee and trust beneficiary from suggesting that Charles still should have to pay $25,000 to the trust as evidenced by the promissory note. In their complaint, Mary and George asserted that Charles had failed to make any payments on the $25,000 note since 1987. Consequently, they demanded repayment of this loan with interest. TheSuperior Court granted partial summary judgment to Mary and George on the relevant counts of their complaint, and Charles subsequently filed this timely appeal. In contending that the motion justice erred in granting summary judgment on the note, Charles asserts that a genuine issue of material fact exists concerning whether, by their words and conduct, Mary and George forgave Charles's $25,000 debt to the trust. In his deposition, Charles swore that Mary had visited his home in 1991 and had orally forgiven his repayment of this debt. He also claimed that George's acceptance of Mary's 1987 gift to him of the Warwick property amounted to his tacit approval of the asserted debt forgiveness so that Mary could equal things out with Charles's receipt of the Maine property. Mary and George, however, contended that summary judgment was proper on this issue because all trustees must forgive a loan to a trust in order to establish a valid discharge of indebtedness. They argued that George's acceptance of the Warwick home from his mother did not, as a matter of law, equate to his approval of the alleged debt forgiveness. Indeed, Mary and George asserted that they never forgave the $25,000 debt that Charles owed to the trust. The law is well settled that where several trustees are appointed to administer a trust they form one collective trustee, and that any action depending on the exercise of discretion or judgment on the part of the trustees requires the joint action of all. Angell v. Moni, 45 R.I. 186, 188, 121 A. 126, 127 (1923). We also agree, however, with the rule that a trustee's actions can constitute his or her implicit agreement to or ratification of an express agreement made by another trustee such that the trustee whose conduct evinced approval may not later claim that the other trustee's alleged agreement was invalid because it lacked the express approval of all trustees. See Wyman v. Wyman, 676 P.2d 181, 184 (1984) (holding that because trustees accepted a number of increased rental payments on alease, they effectively ratified the lease's renewal and could not declare the renewal invalid for the lack of all trustees' approval of same). Here, Mary and George point to the fact that no writing exists to support any alleged debt forgiveness, nor was there any consideration alleged to support such a claim. They further argue that Charles produced no evidence that Mary and George, in their capacity as trustees, agreed with or ratified this alleged debt forgiveness. Charles, however, presented deposition testimony, his own sworn affidavit, and the sworn affidavit of his wife that Mary forgave the $25,000 loan during a conversation he had with her in the summer of 1991 in the presence of his wife. [4] And according to H. Thomas Rowles's affidavit, Mary admitted to him that she had transferred her Warwick home to George in 1987 to even things up between her sons. Finally, George concededly accepted Mary's gift to him of the Warwick property in 1987 because he knew that Mary believed this would serve to even out his and Charles's share of their father's estate. Thus, in contrast to Mary's and George's denials of any loan forgiveness, the motion justice received deposition transcripts and affidavits of witnesses who averred that Mary had forgiven the $25,000 demand promissory note issued to Charles and that George had accepted Mary's deed of her Warwick home to him as a way for Mary to equalize the property distributions that she had made to her two sons. As we have stated previously, [t]his appears to us to present a classic factual dispute that should not be resolved on summary judgment by preferring [some] affidavit[s] over    other[s]. Noguras v. Ling, 713 A.2d 214, 217 (R.I.1998). We are of the opinion that these circumstances, viewed in the light most favorable to Charles, created a genuine issue of material fact concerning whether Mary's and George's actions amounted totheir forgiving Charles's $25,000 debt to the trust and whether George's acceptance of the Warwick property as a gift estopped him from challenging Mary's alleged debt forgiveness to Charles as part of a way for Mary to equal things out with his brother. The motion justice observed correctly that to survive a summary-judgment motion, the opposing party must present evidence from which a jury could draw reasonable inferences sufficient to create a genuine issue of material fact. See Gelineau, 732 A.2d at 47-48. Indeed, Rule 56 of the Superior Court Rules of Civil Procedure, concerning summary judgment, requires that the nonmoving party adduce sufficient controverted evidence of material fact(s)  irrespective of its credibility or weight  to require a trial. See Superior Boiler Works, Inc., 711 A.2d at 631-32. Here, the motion justice ruled that George's simple statement that this would balance things out, coupled with Charles's deposition testimony in which he answered, [n]o, when asked whether George expressly and directly forgave the note, did not amount to sufficient evidence to draw a reasonable inference that [George] consented to a forgiveness of the note. In our de novo review of the record, we are of the opinion that the above-referenced evidence, combined with the other circumstances noted previously, created a genuine issue of material fact that cannot be resolved without a trial. The function of the motion justice considering a proposed summary-judgment motion is not to cull out the weak cases from the herd of lawsuits waiting to be tried. Rather, only if the case is legally dead on arrival should the court take the drastic step of administering last rites by granting summary judgment. Here, however weak, improbable, or unlikely Charles's assertions of gift-giving and loan-forgiveness may have appeared to the motion justice, they still created genuine issues of material fact concerning whether Mary's and George's actions prevented them from attempting to collect Charles's $25,000 debt to the trust and from requiring Charles to reimburse Mary for the money shehad deposited into the CD accounts after the bank seized the money in the pledged joint accounts to liquidate the balance due on Charles's unpaid bank loan.