Court Opinion

ID: 9531735
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:14:14.21162+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:34.432209
License: Public Domain

SIMMS, Vice Chief Justice,
dissenting.
I must respectfully dissent. The interest James Cully had in this furniture, which is the only issue before us today, was settled in 1954 in our decision of In re Cully’s Estate, Okl., 276 P.2d 250.
Cynda Cully had disinherited James and their minor son as to both real and personal property. She had bequeathed all her “household goods and effects, [and] furniture” to a daughter of a prior marriage. Supra, at 252. In that appeal, the Cully Court affirmed the trial court’s judgment awarding James “a child’s part, or one-seventh interest in any and/or all of [this] personal property.” At 254.
The parties now ask us to decide whether these items were his sole property so that his estate is entitled to all the proceeds, or whether he had merely a possessory interest with limited ownership rights.
The trial court and Court of Appeals held that because our opinion in Cully’s Estate had limited James’ interest to one-seventh or a child’s share, his estate was entitled to only one-seventh of the proceeds of the sale. In my opinion, the judgment of the trial court and Court of Appeals in the instant case is clearly correct and is compelled by Cully’s Estate, supra, which is the law of this case.
The majority also errs in its suggestion that the decision in Culley’s Estate, is juris-dictionally defective because the trial court included the furniture in the probate distribution. That judgment was properly within the jurisdiction of the trial court. The court had the power to render the judgment and it became final and conclusive as to the ownership of this furniture. See, e.g., In re Buchanan’s Estate, 130 Okl. 148, 265 P. 1056 (1926); Funk v. Baker, 21 Okl. 402, 96 P. 608 (1908). Bryan v. Seiffert, 185 Okl. 496, 94 P.2d 526, 531 (1939) is inapposite to this action.
This is a collateral attack on a 30 year old valid, final judgment. The Court should recognize it as such and refuse to disturb the pronounced law of the case.
I would deny certiorari.