Opinion ID: 1246907
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: performance of duties

Text: Conway insists that First Trust failed to perform its statutory duties because no complete inventory and appraisal in her mother's estate was ever made, and no notice to creditors was ever given in that estate. In doing so, she insists that procedural provisions about inventory, appraisal and notice to creditors of the old Probate Code in effect when her mother died in 1974 should apply. Our current Probate Code was adopted from the Uniform Probate Code in 1973, effective July 1, 1975. N.D.C.C. § 30.1-35-01(1). It specifically provided: b. The title applies to any proceedings in court then pending or thereafter commenced regardless of the time of the death of decedent except to the extent that in the opinion of the court the former procedure should be made applicable in a particular case in the interest of justice or because of infeasibility of application of the procedure of this title. N.D.C.C. § 30.1-35-01(2). The old Probate Code, chapters 30-13, 30-15, and 30-20, was simultaneously repealed. 1973 S.L., ch. 257, § 82. We find no procedure from the old Probate Code which should be applicable in this decade to First Trust in the interest of justice. Nor, do we find any procedure in the new Probate Code which is infeasible of application to these estates. Conway points out that Kjorvestad I, 250 N.W.2d at 276, approved application of old Probate Code procedures to those disputes in 1977. In that decision, this Court said: Application of former law was in the discretion of the trial court and we do not find an abuse of that discretion.... This prior discretionary application of old procedures did not fix procedural rights for the eternity of these estates. It is axiomatic that procedural modes, as distinguished from substantive rights, are not vested and are subject to repeal, modification or change. Kessler v. Thompson, 75 N.W.2d 172, 178 (N.D.1956). The lack of formal inventory and appraisement in this disrupted estate is not significant in view of the extensive estate tax filings and litigation, which First Trust concluded, and in view of the prior major distributions in these estates before First Trust was appointed to wind them up. Nothing supports imposing a greater burden upon First Trust than upon Conway herself. Again, her own failure to cause inventory and appraisal while she was responsible, as well as her own failure to account to her successor, demonstrates the lack of merit in her claim that First Trust failed to perform statutory duties. As to Conway's complaint that notice to creditors had not been given in her mother's estate, we observe that this saved needless expense to the estate since all creditors' claims against the estate were long since barred by the lapse of time in this estate. N.D.C.C. § 30.1-19-03. We hold that First Trust satisfactorily performed its duties of administering and distributing the remaining balance of Mrs. Kjorvestad's estate as expeditiously as possible.