Opinion ID: 2630183
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Does the probate code govern appointment of a personal representative under the wrongful death act?

Text: [¶ 6] It is necessary at the outset of this discussion to identify the statutes that underlie the dispute. Title 2 of the Wyoming Statutes is entitled Wills, Decedents' Estates and Probate Code. Chapter 4 of Title 2, entitled Intestate Succession, provides the procedures for the administration of the estates of those who die without providing for the distribution of their property via a will. Because those who die intestate have not made a will, neither have they named an executor to administer their estate. Consequently, the legislature has provided a process for the appointment of the administrator of an intestate estate. As part of that process, Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 2-4-201(a) (LexisNexis 2009) sets forth the order of preference the probate court is to follow in selecting the administrator: (a) Administration of the estate of a person dying intestate shall be granted to one (1) or more of the persons mentioned in this section. The relatives of the deceased are entitled to administer only when they are entitled to succeed to his personal estate or some portion thereof. They are entitled to administer in the following order: (i) The surviving husband or wife, or some competent person whom he or she may request to have appointed; (ii) The children; (iii) The father or mother; (iv) The brothers or sisters; (v) Repealed by Laws 1987, ch. 129, §§ 1, 2; (vi) The grandchildren; (vii) The next of kin entitled to share in the distribution of the estate; (viii) The creditors; (ix) Any person legally competent. [¶ 7] The other legislative act that lies at the heart of this dispute is the wrongful death act, found not in the probate code, but in the civil code at Wyo. Stat. Ann. §§ 1-38-101 and 102 (LexisNexis 2009). The wrongful death act provides in relevant part as follows: § 1-38-101. Actions for wrongful death which survive; proceedings against executor or administrator of person liable. Whenever the death of a person is caused by wrongful act, neglect or default such as would have entitled the party injured to maintain an action to recover damages if death had not ensued, the person who would have been liable if death had not ensued is liable in an action for damages.... § 1-38-102. Action to be brought by personal representative; recovery exempt from debts; measure and element of damages; limitation of action. (a) Every such action shall be brought by and in the name of the personal representative of the deceased person. .... (c) The court or jury, as the case may be, in every such action may award such damages, pecuniary and exemplary, as shall be deemed fair and just. Every person for whose benefit such action is brought may prove his respective damages, and the court or jury may award such person that amount of damages to which it considers such person entitled, including damages for loss of probable future companionship, society and comfort. .... [¶ 8] Inasmuch as this issue involves the intention of the wrongful death statute, we shall apply our customary standard of review: In interpreting statutes, our primary consideration is to determine the legislature's intent. All statutes must be construed in pari materia and, in ascertaining the meaning of a given law, all statutes relating to the same subject or having the same general purpose must be considered and construed in harmony. Statutory construction is a question of law, so our standard of review is de novo. We endeavor to interpret statutes in accordance with the legislature's intent. We begin by making an inquiry respecting the ordinary and obvious meaning of the words employed according to their arrangement and connection. We construe the statute as a whole, giving effect to every word, clause, and sentence, and we construe all parts of the statute in pari materia. When a statute is sufficiently clear and unambiguous, we give effect to the plain and ordinary meaning of the words and do not resort to the rules of statutory construction. Wyoming Board of Outfitters and Professional Guides v. Clark, 2001 WY 78, ¶ 12, 30 P.3d 36, [41] (Wyo.2001); Murphy v. State Canvassing Board, 12 P.3d 677, 679 (Wyo. 2000). Moreover, we must not give a statute a meaning that will nullify its operation if it is susceptible of another interpretation. Billis v. State, 800 P.2d 401, 413 (Wyo.1990) (citing McGuire v. McGuire, 608 P.2d 1278, 1283 (Wyo. 1980)). Moreover, we will not enlarge, stretch, expand, or extend a statute to matters that do not fall within its express provisions. Gray v. Stratton Real Estate, 2001 WY 125, ¶ 5, 36 P.3d 1127, [1128] (Wyo.2001); Bowen v. State, Wyoming Real Estate Commission, 900 P.2d 1140, 1143 (Wyo.1995). Loberg v. Wyo. Workers' Safety & Comp. Div., 2004 WY 48, ¶ 5, 88 P.3d 1045, [1048] (Wyo.2004) (quoting Board of County Comm'rs of Teton County v. Crow, 2003 WY 40, ¶¶ 40-41, 65 P.3d 720, [733-34] (Wyo.2003)). Only if we determine the language of a statute is ambiguous will we proceed to the next step, which involves applying general principles of statutory construction to the language of the statute in order to construe any ambiguous language to accurately reflect the intent of the legislature. If this Court determines that the language of the statute is not ambiguous, there is no room for further construction. We will apply the language of the statute using its ordinary and obvious meaning. BP Am. Prod. Co. v. Dep't of Revenue, 2005 WY 60, ¶ 15, 112 P.3d 596, 604 (Wyo.2005). [¶ 9] The brevity of the wrongful death act has left it open over the years to judicial interpretation, and that interpretation has not always been entirely consistent. See Grant Harvey Lawson, Reconciling the Wyoming Wrongful Death Act with the Wyoming Probate Code: The Legislature's Wake-up Call for Clarification, 7 Wyo. L.Rev. 409 (2007). Contributing to that confusion has been the transfer of the wrongful death act back and forth between the civil code and the probate code. See 1982 Wyo. Sess. Laws, ch. 54, § 7 [at 94]; 1980 Wyo. Sess. Laws, ch. 54, § 1 [at 370-71]; 1977 Wyo. Sess. Laws, ch. 188, § 1 [at 916]. Rather than recite all the iterations and reiterations of our jurisprudence in regard to this issue, we will simply make some observations about the law that should help to show its present status and to illuminate the distinctions between the wrongful death act and the intestate succession statutes. [¶ 10] Of primary significance is that the separate purposes of the two statutes are entirely distinct. Although the following commentary relates to statutory intestate descent and distribution priorities, as opposed to statutory intestate administrator priorities, the rationale also fits the latter: The purpose of a statute of descent and distribution is to provide for the transmission of title to property upon the death of the owner intestate and to regulate the division of estates among heirs according to principles of equality and equity. The passing of property upon intestacy is pursuant to a statutory will, which determines the property passing as well as the identity of the recipients, and which is considered to be such a distribution as the intestate presumably would have made if he or she had made a will. The general policy is to follow the lead of the natural affections and to consider as most worthy the claims of those who stand nearest to the affections of the intestate.... 23 Am.Jur.2d Descent and Distribution § 4 (2002) (footnotes omitted). In other words, the purpose of an intestate succession statute is to provide for distribution of a decedent's estate in a manner that, in all likelihood, emulates the distribution that would have been chosen by the decedent. [¶ 11] We have identified an altogether different purpose for the legislature's adoption of the wrongful death act: The purpose of the Wrongful Death Act, commonly known as Lord Campbell's Act, was to prescribe limitations and a remedy for a cause of action which did not exist at common law, for at common law the cause of action died with the death of the claimant. Gengo v. Mardis, 103 Neb. 164, 170 N.W. 841 (1919). Wyoming adopted the wrongful death act in 1871. Coliseum Motor Co. v. Hester, 43 Wyo. 298, 305, 3 P.2d 105, 106 (1931). The act was similar to Lord Campbell's Act and was almost an exact copy of West Virginia's wrongful death law. Id. In the wrongful death statute, the Wyoming legislature has expressed a social policy that favors compensation to ameliorate the certain damage to relational interests resulting from the death of a family member. Nulle v. Gillette-Campbell County Joint Powers Fire Bd., 797 P.2d 1171, 1175 (Wyo.1990). Corkill v. Knowles, 955 P.2d 438, 441 (Wyo. 1998). [¶ 12] In several cases, this Court has revisited the distinction between these two statutory constructs. For instance, in Jordan v. Delta Drilling Co., 541 P.2d 39, 42 (Wyo.1975) (footnote omitted), overruled on other grounds by Wetering v. Eisele, 682 P.2d 1055, 1062 (Wyo.1984), we said the following: We see no mandate from the legislature that because an administrator is appointed [under the wrongful death act] that this means only heirs may be beneficiaries to the proceeds derived as a result of the action. The administrator acts but in the capacity of a trustee. Coliseum Motor Co. v. Hester, 1931, 43 Wyo. 298, 3 P.2d 105. The Wyoming statute authorizing wrongful death actions is part of the civil code of this state and not a part of the probate code. The designation of an administrator is no more than a statutory device to provide a party for a civil action to collect damages and pay them over to the persons entitled. As said in Ashley v. Read Construction Co., D.C. Wyo., 1961, 195 F.Supp. 727, 729, We must not confuse an administrator acting as a personal representative with an administrator of an estate whose duties and powers are set out in [the probate code].    The amount of recovery does not become a part of the decedent's estate. Tuttle v. Short, 1930, 42 Wyo. 1, 18, 288 P. 524, 529, 70 A.L.R. 106, 112. This is true even though the administrator or executor must bring the action. Bircher v. Foster, Wyo.1963, 378 P.2d 901, 902. See also DeHerrera v. Herrera, 565 P.2d 479, 482 (Wyo.1977). [¶ 13] The central theme of these cases is that an intestate estate probate code administrator and a wrongful death action civil code personal representative have different functions and different duties, and that there is not, and should not be, any necessary connection between them. Unfortunately, in Bircher v. Foster, 378 P.2d 901, 902 (Wyo.1963), while acknowledging that the wrongful death act then in effect is anomalous in some respects and leaves certain unanswered questions, this Court held that the only person who could bring an action for wrongful death was the personal representative of the deceased, the executor or administrator of decedent's estate.  (Emphasis added.) We went even further and announced that there is no authority in this State either by statute or decision whereby a district court, unless sitting in probate, would be authorized to appoint a father as the personal representative of a deceased son for the purposes of a death action. Id. at 903. [¶ 14] Although Bircher may have been a viable construction of the statutes as they stood at that time, it is now clear that a wrongful death action is not to be processed under the probate code, but rather is to be processed just like any other civil action. Bircher is overruled prospectively to the extent that it requires a wrongful death action to be brought in probate court, and to the extent that it requires a wrongful death personal representative to be the administrator or executor of the decedent's estate in probate. [1] In reaching those conclusions, we find Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 1-38-102(a) to be unambiguous. The statute, which is part of the civil code and which serves a purpose unlike the purposes of the probate code, requires wrongful death claims to be brought by one person, called a personal representative of the deceased person, rather than by the multitude of persons who may be claimants under Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 1-38-102(c). The logical inference incorporated into the statutory language, in order to apply the most reasonable intent to the words used, is that the district court, at the outset of a wrongful death action, must appoint the personal representative in whose name the complaint will be filed. There is no ambiguity within the statute; it is the attempt to incorporate probate code concepts into the statute that potentially creates an ambiguity. [2] [¶ 15] We must keep in mind the appropriate role of this Court in interpreting statutes. In addition to the general rules of statutory construction set forth above ( see supra ¶ 8), we note the particular admonition that [w]e will not insert language into the statutes that the legislature omitted. Merrill v. Jansma, 2004 WY 26, ¶ 29, 86 P.3d 270, 285 (Wyo.2004). Long ago, the federal district court for the District of Wyoming followed that very precept in holding that, inasmuch as Wyoming's wrongful death act does not require the personal representative to be a resident of Wyoming, it was not up to the courts to insert that requirement. Ashley v. Read Constr. Co., 195 F.Supp. 727, 729 (D.Wyo.1961). Today, we merely expand upon that observation by holding that, inasmuch as Wyoming's wrongful death act does not require the personal representative to be the probate estate's administrator or executor, it is not up to this Court to insert that requirement. We reiterate, perhaps unnecessarily, that a reasonable reading of the wrongful death act does not require incorporation of probate code concepts. A wrongful death action may be appropriate even in circumstances where there is no reason whatever to establish a probate, testate or intestate. There may be no estate to probate, despite the need for a wrongful death personal representative. In that situation, it would be absurd to open a probate, and we ascribe to legislation reasonable, rather than absurd or futile intent. Hede v. Gilstrap, 2005 WY 24, ¶ 6, 107 P.3d 158, 163 (Wyo. 2005); Bd. of County Comm'rs of County of Laramie v. City of Cheyenne, 2004 WY 16, ¶ 27, 85 P.3d 999, 1007 (Wyo.2004). [¶ 16] Interestingly enough, the district court came to this same conclusionthat the appointment of a wrongful death act personal representative had nothing to do with the appointment of an executor or administrator under the probate codeand he denied Wife's petition primarily on the ground that, with no applicable probate code preference for Wife's appointment under Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 1-38-102(a), Father could continue to serve as the personal representative. Having correctly determined that the wrongful death act appointment of a personal representative was not the appointment of a probate code estate administrator, the district court should have dismissed this probate code action, and should not have allowed Father's appointment to stand.