Court Opinion

ID: 9693000
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 16:15:23.173281+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:59:28.697650
License: Public Domain

FARRELL, Associate Judge:
This appeal arises from a dispute over whether the decedent, Norah Boyle Reap, died intestate because her will, executed during her marriage to John R. Reap, III, was impliedly revoked by their subsequent divorce and property arrangement, as well as his remarriage. The trial judge granted summary judgment to Norah’s aunt (and challenger of the will), Anastatia McG. Mal-loy, and denied summary judgment to Mr. Reap.1 Mary B. Reap, personal representative of John R. Reap, III, appeals these decisions. We reverse the grant of summary judgment and remand for trial on the issue of whether the Reaps had a property settlement agreement at the time of their divorce.
I.
The Reaps were married on January 17, 1970, separated in the summer of 1982, and divorced on May 3, 1991. John’s complaint for divorce asserted in part that “[tjhere are no property rights to be adjudicated between the parties.” Norah’s answer agreed, and they executed a praecipe that the divorce was “uncontested as to all matters.” The divorce judgment echoed the above-quoted language from John’s complaint. John remarried before Norah died.
Norah had executed a will in 1976 naming John and two others as beneficiaries. She never modified the will. In December 1992, John was appointed the personal representative of Norah’s estate, and her will was admitted into probate. Anastatia, Norah’s closest living relative, filed a complaint challenging the will, alleging that it had been revoked by implication of law pursuant to D.C.Code § 18-109 (1997) when the Reaps divorced in 1991.
John and Anastatia filed cross motions for summary judgment. Although they agreed about most material facts, including that the Reaps had not entered into a written property settlement agreement upon their divorce, they disputed whether the couple had reached an oral agreement. As evidence, Anastatia pointed to John’s representation to the court that no property rights had to be adjudicated, and to a 1993 claim that John had filed against Norah’s estate for waste, in which he referred inter alia to the parties’ “understanding that [Norah] would reside in the premises and maintain the property.” Attached to John’s motion, by contrast, was his affidavit explaining the Reaps’ amicable and flexible relationship during their nine-year separation and later divorce.2 He asserted that, although the Reaps had lived apart starting in 1982, their lives remained intertwined; consequently, they never “finally settle[d] [their] respective rights in [their] marital property” but instead continued to share some property and individually use other jointly-held property. “At the time of our divorce,” John concluded, “we agreed not to divide our marital property. We had been separated for nine years and comfortably shared our property with each other. Because we did not want to determine which property would belong to Norah or to me individually, we did not enter into any property settlement agreement or ask the court to divide our property.”
The trial judge granted Anastatia’s summary judgment motion on three grounds. First, while admitting that the Reaps had not contested their property rights in the divorce proceeding, he found that the divorce complaint and answer stating that there were no *329property rights to be adjudicated “evidenced] such a[ ] [property] agreement.” This inference also was based on D.C.Code § 16-910 (1997), which the judge read to mandate court assignment and distribution of all marital property unless there is a property settlement agreement. He reasoned that because the divorce judge was required to distribute any unassigned marital property, and had not done so, the Reaps must have reached an agreement. Second, the judge found that, in view of John’s earlier representation to the court that there were no property rights to be adjudicated, John was collaterally estopped from asserting that the property rights had not been settled. Finally, even if the first two grounds failed, the judge ruled that John’s divorce and subsequent remarriage were sufficient changed circumstances to revoke Norah’s will, since it was “highly unlikely” that Norah would have wanted John’s new wife to receive any benefits from her estate in the event John predeceased his current wife.
II.
We agree with appellant that summary judgment was improperly granted to Anasta-tia, but conclude that the critical material fact in the case — whether there was a property settlement — remains in dispute. We therefore remand for trial on that issue.
A.
Summary judgment is proper if there are no genuine issues of material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Super. Ct. Civ. R. 56(c) (1998); Hendel v. World Plan Executive Council, 705 A.2d 656, 660 (D.C.1997). The evidence must be viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, who is entitled to “all favorable inferences which may reasonably be drawn from the evidentia-ry materials.” Id. (citation omitted). In essence the test, like that for a directed verdict, is “whether the evidence presents a sufficient disagreement to require submission to a [trier of fact] or whether it is so one-sided that one party must prevail as a matter of law.” Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 251-52, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986). On appeal from summary judgment, we conduct an independent review of the record using the same substantive standard employed by the trial court. Hendel, 705 A.2d at 660.
B.
D.C.Code § 18-109 provides that a will may be revoked by implication of law.3 The doctrine applies when there has been a change in the condition and circumstances of the parties significant enough to impute to the testatrix an intent to repudiate. See Luff v. Luff, 123 U.S.App. D.C. 251, 253, 359 F.2d 235, 237 (1966); 2 William J. Bowe & Douglas H. PARKER, Page on Wills § 21.87 (1960 & Supp.1999). As the trial judge recognized, divorce alone of the testator (or testatrix) is not enough in this jurisdiction to cause revocation of the will by implication; the spouses must have “settled their respective rights in each other’s assets,” Estate of Liles, 435 A.2d 379, 382 (D.C.1981), and thus the divorce must be accompanied either by a “formally agreed property settlement” between the spouses, Luff, 123 U.S.App. D.C. at 252, 255 & n. 11, 359 F.2d at 236, 239 & n. 11, or by a division of their property rights by the court. Estate of Liles, 435 A.2d at 381-82; see Estate of Bowden v. Aldridge, 595 A.2d 396, 398 n. 6 (D.C.1991) (“[A] divorce and accompanying property division, whether by the court or agreement, automatically revokes any existing will’s bequest to the former spouse” (citing Liles )).4
*330The existence of a property settlement agreement or court division of the property is critical in this jurisdiction because, while in some other jurisdictions revocation by implication of law entails only a presumption that may be rebutted, in this jurisdiction it is conclusive:
It may not be overcome by evidence adduced subsequent to the death of the tes-tat[rix] and then relied upon as indicative of an intention that the will should be effective. Inquiry into the state of mind of the testat[rix] is confined to that imputed to [her] by the divorce and property settlement.
Luff, 123 U.S.App. D.C. at 255, 359 F.2d at 239; see Estate of Liles, 435 A.2d at 382. Even more dramatically, the revocation is complete in that it applies to all of the beneficiaries, not just the other spouse: “the decedent’s estate passes as if [s]he died intestate.” Estate of Liles, 435 A.2d at 383. It therefore cuts off the testamentary rights of persons or entities having no relation to the divorce. These consequences no doubt underlie the requirement that, besides divorce, there must have been a “formally agreed property settlement” or court-ordered division, Estate of Liles, before implied revocation may be found.
C.
The trial judge reasoned that the statement in the divorce pleadings that there were no property rights to be adjudicated, combined with the operation of D.C.Code § 16-910, established that the Reaps had settled their respective property rights as a matter of law. We think the judge erred. A statement that the parties are not submitting the matter of property rights for adjudication admits of two reasonable meanings. One is that the parties have formally settled their respective rights in each other’s assets, but the other is quite the opposite: that they have agreed not to disturb their present joint ownership of all or some of their property, in a manner consistent with their respective testamentary wishes. That the latter is at least a plausible understanding of the Reaps’ intent is supported by John’s affidavit stating that the Reaps did not want to divide their property but instead were content to go on sharing their possessions and obligations, e.g., their house and charge and checking accounts, in keeping with the uncontentious nature of their years-long separation. A mutual understanding of this kind not to distribute their respective property rights plainly is not the final “settle[ment of] their respective rights in each other’s assets,” Estate of Liles, 435 A.2d at 382, required by our implied revocation decisions.
Nor does D.C.Code § 16-910 support a conclusion as a matter of law that a property settlement had been reached.5 While the statute does appear to be binary in requiring assignment and distribution by the court or an agreement of the spouses “disposing [of] the property,” that is certainly not conclusive proof that by eschewing the former the parties admitted they had a property settlement. Our case law is equivocal on the extent to which the divorce court’s jurisdiction to divide property may be deferred. See, e.g., Boyce v. Boyce, 541 A.2d 614, 619 n. 10 (D.C.1988) (rejecting spouse’s argument that “since a trial court is required by section 16-910 to distribute marital property upon divorce, there can be no distribution of assets in the future”); Carter v. Carter, 516 A.2d 917, 923 n. 16 (D.C.1986) (opining that trial court could have allowed continued possession of property by both parties for a reasonable period, with suspension of the unilateral *331right of partition). We need not probe that difficult issue here. The point is that the Reaps reasonably may have thought that their choices upon divorce were not limited to dividing their property themselves or having the court do so.6 The understanding asserted in John’s affidavit, whereby they continued to hold the property as though still married despite the separation and divorce, may be awkward to square with § 16-910 but it is not patently unlawful or so implausible that the court could draw from it, as a matter of law, the conclusion that the parties had settled their property rights once and for all.
Nor is the fact, emphasized by our dissenting colleague, that ordinarily a divorce dissolves a tenancy by the entirety and converts it to a tenancy in common, see Travis v. Benson, 360 A.2d 506, 509 (D.C.1976), at all decisive. As the dissent acknowledges, ante at 333, that principle is “subject to any agreement” to the contrary. An understanding of the kind asserted by John, whereby the spouses essentially treated the divorce as irrelevant to their continued joint ownership of the property, is not the settlement of their respective interests envisioned by the implied revocation doctrine because it is fully consistent with the continued efficacy of the testamentary disposition.
For the same reason, we reject the trial judge’s finding of collateral estoppel based on the conclusion that by asserting that no property rights were to be adjudicated the Reaps necessarily meant they had made a property division themselves, which then somehow became part of the divorce decree. It cannot be said that by jointly seeking an uncontested divorce in which no property rights would be adjudicated, the parties “actually litigated,” Davis v. Davis, 663 A.2d 499, 501 (D.C.1995), the issue of their respective rights in each other’s assets. Additionally, summary judgment derives no support from the fact that John remarried before his ex-wife died. That Norah’s testamentary intent changed as a result of John’s remarriage is much too conjectural to substitute for the proof of divorce plus a property settlement agreement required by our decisions.
Of course, the fact that summary judgment was improperly granted to Anastatia does not mean that it properly should have been granted to John. We reject John’s primary argument that he was entitled to judgment because his affidavit provides the sole record evidence of whether the parties had a property settlement. Against the background of § 16-910, the parties’ assertion on divorcing that no property rights were in dispute is some evidence that a fact-finder could consider in concluding they had reached an agreement. But there was more. The record included John’s written claim for waste against Norah’s estate filed in July 1993, which requested $30,000 for half the cost of repairing damage assertedly caused by Norah’s use of the marital home. It stated that John had left the marital home “with the understanding that [Norah] would reside in the premises and maintain the property”; and that “[Continuously from 1982 until her death, [Norah] had total use, occupancy and enjoyment of the premises to the exclusion of [John]” (emphasis added). These assertions at least partly contradict John’s representations in his affidavit. Combined with the ambiguous assertion in the divorce pleadings, they create a triable issue of fact on whether John and Norah had entered into a property settlement agreement at the time of their divorce.
We accordingly vacate the award of summary judgment and remand for trial on that issue.

So ordered.

. While the summary judgment motions were pending, both Ms. Malloy and Mr. Reap died. Their estates’ personal representatives, J. Kevin Malloy and Maty B. Reap, respectively, were substituted as proper parties.

. Through all or part of that period, the Reaps had maintained joint checking and charge accounts and joint insurance on the marital home, and until their divorce Norah was covered under John’s health insurance. John lived in the marital home for two years, then traded off with Norah. Most of the furniture and other personal property was left in the house and not divided, according to John, although he sometimes dropped by to pick up items such as bottles of wine from their shared collection.

. Section 18-109 states in relevant part:
(a) A will or codicil, or a part thereof, may not be revoked, except by implication of law, otherwise than by ... [a subsequent writing, or physical destruction with the intent to revoke it], [Emphasis added.]

. Citing language from Bolle v. Hume, 619 A.2d 1192, 1198 (D.C.1993) (per curiam), Anastatia argues that divorce alone is sufficient for revocation, see also Unif. Probate Code § 2-508, 8 U.L.A. 154; § 2-804, 8 U.L.A. 217-18 (1998) (Divorce alone revokes a will.), at least as to the spousal beneficiary. These Uniform Code sections have not been adopted in the District of Columbia. See Liles, 435 A.2d at 383 (District of Columbia Council considered but did not adopt § 2-508); Unif. Probate Code, 8 U.L.A. 1 (1998) (listing jurisdictions wherein Code has been adopted). *330In Bolle the court's holding consisted of a refusal to extend the implied revocation doctrine to life insurance benefits. Bolle’s brief general discussion of the doctrine cannot be taken as a considered re-analysis and rejection of Luff, Liles, and Bowden in their requirement of divorce plus property division before the doctrine is satisfied.

. The statute provides in relevant part:
Upon the entry of a final decree of ... divorce in the absence of a valid ante-nuptial or post-nuptial agreement or a decree of legal separation disposing the property of the spouses, the court shall:
(a) assign to each party his or her sole and separate property ... and
(b) distribute all other property accumulated during the marriage, regardless of whether title is held individually or by the parties in a form of joint tenancy or tenancy by the entire-ties, in a manner that is equitable, just and reasonable .... [Emphasis added.]

. We therefore disagree with the trial judge’s view that it would have been "at best disingenuous and at worst untruthful” of John (in the judge’s words) to assert that there was no property for the court to divide unless the spouses had divided it voluntarily.