Opinion ID: 2346556
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Contractual Obligations

Text: Appellant claims that she had a life estate and thus is entitled to sue Hoffman for damages to the real property. From the record, it is difficult to discern what exactly appellant's legal interest in the estate might be. Appellant did not provide any evidence that she maintained a life estate in the house other than Fawcett's testimony that appellant and her sisters had an informal agreement that she would live in their mother's house. As the trial court noted, under D.C.Code § 45-306(b) (1981) a life estate may be granted only by a deed signed and sealed by the grantor, lessor, or declarant, in person or by power of attorney or by will. Thus, we agree that appellant has not provided sufficient evidence that she had a life estate in the property. Moreover, even if she had a life estate, appellant indicated in the answers to the interrogatories that she was part owner of the property with her sisters, and has not provided information as to why she did not join them in this action. See Flack v. Laster, 417 A.2d 393 (D.C.1980) (A party is indispensable when he has an interest in the proceeding not distinct and severable, and a final decree cannot be made in the party's absence without having an injurious effect on that interest ....). [8] Thus, we hold that on this record summary judgment was appropriate with respect to the real property claims as appellant could not maintain a suit for damages to the real property based on her asserted but unsupported life interest in the property. We agree as well with the trial court that appellant, as an heir to the estate, does not have standing to bring suit as a third party beneficiary to Fawcett's contract with Hoffman. The personal representative is vested with legal title to both real and personal property owned by the decedent at the time of her death and has the same standing to sue as the decedent had at death. Rearden v. Riggs Nat'l Bank, 677 A.2d 1032, 1038 (D.C.1996) (citing D.C.Code § 20-701(c) (1981)). Here, that person was Fawcett who, as personal representative, entered into the contract with Hoffman on behalf of the estate. We have held that a beneficiary cannot bring an action directly against a third-party wrongdoer ... [r]ather, his relief is an action in equity against the trustee to compel the trustee to proceed against the third-party .... Rearden, 677 A.2d at 1037. Therefore, as concerns property of the estate, appellant must assert her interest as a beneficiary of the estate by proceeding against the entit[y] with whom [she has] a fiduciary relationship: the personal representative[], not appellees. Id.