Court Opinion

ID: 9656482
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 19:49:06.958672+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:32.659789
License: Public Domain

Chappell and Wenke, JJ.,
concurring.
We agree with the majority opinion. This concurrence is filed to respectively alleviate any misconcep*293tions that may be engendered by the dissent filed in this case.
This purported claim against the estate of Maude C. Crane, deceased, involves a construction of the will of Fred A. Crane, deceased, to determine the nature and extent of the property rights of the parties in the action under such will. It is a controversy between adverse claimants, Faye Lutcavish and Maude C. Crane, who were devisees or legatees under the same will, which is foreign to the estate of Maude C. Crane. It involves no question pertaining to any function lodged exclusively in the county court. If the purported claim of Faye Lutcavish was based on conversion by Maude C. Crane during her lifetime, that issue depends upon construction of the will of Fred A. Crane, and an accounting of the funds and property involved. The question to be finally determined is the meaning of the will of Fred A. Crane and the respective rights of Faye Lutcavish and the representative of Maude C. Crane as between themselves under that will.
If the funds and property involved belong to Faye Lutcavish, as contended, and not to the estate of Maude C. Crane, it is no part of Maude C. Crane’s estate and the administrator thereof wrongfully has it in his possession. If this be true, it can afford no basis for a claim against Maude C. Crane’s estate. This is not a case wherein the county court had original jurisdiction to construe a will of Maude C. Crane insofar as necessary to enable her executor or administrator to properly administer her estate.
The proper action in the situation at bar is a suit by Faye Lutcavish in the district court to interpret the will of Fred A. Crane and recover a judgment for the amount found due, if any, upon an accounting against the party or parties wrongfully withholding from her the funds and property to which she is allegedly entitled by the will of her father, Fred A. Crane, which will is foreign to and not any part of Maude A. Crane’s estate. *294The district court, under the cases cited in the majority opinion, has exclusive jurisdiction of such an action. Also, in that connection, a careful analysis of the cases relied upon in the dissent do not justify any other conclusion.
The dissent seems to infer that original jurisdiction of the county court can be sustained by the use of terminology which makes it appear to be a claim against the estate of Maude C. Crane. In that connection, courts will look through form to the substance of an action in determining jurisdiction.
The dissent also appears to rely upon the alleged fact that unreasonable expense and delay of decision will follow because Faye Luteavish first invoked the powers of the county court, therefore we should conclude that such court had original jurisdiction. It is fundamental that jurisdiction depends solely upon the nature of the cause of action and not upon economic or sociological grounds.
We cannot agree that the general power of the county court to allow or disallow claims against an estate being administered by a county court authorizes such court to determine the respective rights of a devisee or legatee and the representative of another devisee or legatee who are adverse claimants as between themselves under the same will in another estate which has long since been closed. The claims over which the county court has jurisdiction are those for which Maude C. Crane was liable in her lifetime and those accruing after her death for which her estate is liable by statute. The construction of the will of Fred A. Crane and a determination of the respectively alleged rights of Faye Luteavish and Maude C. Crane under it are clearly matters within the exclusive jurisdiction of the district court. It involves nothing pertaining to the administration of the estate of Maude C. Crane, a proceeding which is admittedly within the exclusive jurisdiction of the county court.