Court Opinion

ID: 9754775
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 20:13:19.605978+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:57.594803
License: Public Domain

Justice NEWMAN,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. Rose died intestate on March 9, 1969. On March 15, 1969, Margaret filed a Petition for Letters of Administration with the Register of Wills for Sullivan County, in which she wrote that the next of kin of Rose were herself, Geraldine, Zita, Genevieve, Joseph, and William Jr. Reproduced Record (R.R.) 72a. In an attached Schedule of Proposed Distribution, Margaret proposed that she, Geraldine, Zita, Genevieve, Joseph, and William Jr., whom she listed as a son of Rose, divide the estate of Rose into equal shares. R.R. 74a. On August 23, 1988, Geraldine and Joseph filed another Petition for Grant of Letters of Administration, in which they listed themselves, Zita, and Genevieve as children of Rose, and the children of Margaret and the children of William Jr. as grandchildren of Rose. R.R. 75a-76a. By that time, both Margaret and William Jr. were deceased. On April 28, 1990, Geraldine sent a letter to Lambert Farms indicating that the estate of Rose was divided into six shares: (1) Zita; (2) Genevieve; (3) the children of Margaret; (4) the son of Joseph, who died in 1989; (5) Geraldine; and (6) the children of William Jr. (R.R. 82a). By letter dated May 17, 1990, the attorney for Geraldine wrote the following to Geraldine:
The attorney for Lambert Farms has forwarded to me a copy of the memorandum which you have submitted, indicating that there should be six shares from the proceeds of the sale of the family farm in Pennsylvania. It is my understanding that all of the individuals involved are in *688agreement with this distribution of six shares. By copy of your memorandum I am providing everyone with a listing of the individuals involved in this distribution.
R.R. 81a (emphasis added).
Section 3521 of the Probate, Estates, and Fiduciaries Code, 20 Pa.C.S. § 3521, provides in relevant part that a party in interest who wishes to challenge a decree of distribution from an intestate estate should do so within five years of that decree. While the record does not disclose the exact date of the decree of distribution, the evidence suggests that a decree was entered by the court on January 8, 1970. See R.R. 79a (letter to William Jr. informing him of an audit to be conducted by the Orphans’ Court of Sullivan County on that date; no party challenged the proposed distribution at that time). The distribution of the estate to include William Jr. as a child of Rose was re-confirmed in 1988, when Geraldine and Joseph filed a second Petition for Grant of Letters of Administration. By 1975, Zita, Genevieve, Joseph, Geraldine, or Margaret (if still alive) should have contested the status of William Jr. as a beneficiary of their mother’s estate, but they did not. At least until May 17, 1990, they acted as if William Jr. were a child of Rose for the purposes of her estate.
The majority rejects the Section 3521 argument, concluding that the heirs of William Jr. did not preserve it and, therefore, waived it. See Majority Opinion, at 541, n. 11. While the majority is correct in noting that the heirs of William Jr. never specifically mentioned Section 3521, a review of the Record demonstrates that the heirs of William Jr. continually pointed to documentation post-dating the death of Rose, indicating that William Jr. was an heir of the intestate estate of Rose.The heirs of William Jr. presented to the trial court and the Superior Court, inter alia, an estoppel argument, contending that the actions of the remainder of the family after the death of Rose served to estop them from denying the status of William Jr. as an intestate heir of Rose at the time of her death. I believe that the Section 3521 argument is fairly comprised therein and, accordingly, would hold that the heirs of William Jr. are entitled to one-sixth of the farm.
*689Based on the letter dated April 28, 1990, Lambert Farms had actual notice of the claim of the heirs of William Jr., and at some point in time between that date and the date of sale on April 11, 1991, Lambert Farms and the other heirs of Rose agreed to the sale without the approval or knowledge of the heirs of William Jr. We do not know why on May 17, 1990, the heirs of William Jr. were parties to the proceedings, but less than eleven months later were no longer involved at the time of sale. We can only speculate that the other heirs of Rose could not convince the heirs of William Jr. to agree to the transaction. We do know, however, that nothing occurred between May 17, 1990 and April 11, 1991, which would have given the other heirs of Rose cause to challenge the status of the heirs of William Jr. By Genevieve’s own admission, the children of William Sr. and Rose knew that William Jr. was the child of Zita, not the child of Rose, at the time of the birth of William Jr. in 1921. To allow Genevieve (and the other heirs) to challenge the status of William Jr. in 1990 or 1991, more than twenty years after the death of Rose, strains credulity.
The majority permits the other heirs of Rose to eliminate William Jr. from their ranks after holding him out as a direct intestate heir for more than twenty years. This position I simply cannot accept. If the other heirs wished to assert the alleged truth about the biological lineage of William Jr., they should not have twice included him in the letters of administration of the estate of Rose. Alternatively, they could have challenged the distribution as late as January 8, 1975. Because they failed to claim that William Jr. was not a child of Rose within this time period, the other heirs of Rose were estopped from entering into a contract with any entity to sell the entire farm without the approval of William Jr. or his heirs. Therefore, the other heirs only had authority to sell five-sixths of the family farm to Lambert Farms and the heirs of William Jr. retain a one-sixth interest in the property. Because the other heirs of Rose failed to challenge the status of William Jr. as an intestate beneficiary within five years of *690the decree of distribution of Rose’s estate, they are estopped from doing so now and, accordingly, I dissent.