Court Opinion

ID: 9909562
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-12-13 18:02:32.406582+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:49:58.437498
License: Public Domain

Filed 12/13/23 Miller v. Miller CA1/5

                  NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS

California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for
publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or
ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

          IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

                                      FIRST APPELLATE DISTRICT

                                                  DIVISION FIVE

 DUNCAN MACKENZIE MILLER,
           Defendant and Appellant,
                                                                        A166832
 v.
 DEBORAH JEAN MILLER, as                                                (Napa County
 Trustee, etc.,                                                         Super. Ct. No. 21PR000269)
           Plaintiff and Respondent.

         Plaintiff and respondent Deborah Jean Miller (Deborah) is trustee of
The Elizabeth Anne Miller Residence Trust (Trust).1 Defendant and
appellant Duncan Mackenzie Miller (Duncan), Deborah’s brother, appeals
from the trial court’s order granting Deborah’s petition for approval of her
Trust accounting and for trustee compensation. In the same order, the court
denied his objection to the accounting. We affirm.
         The Trust was established by Elizabeth Anne Miller (Decedent) in
December 1996. Deborah, Duncan, and their sister Suzanne are named as
equal beneficiaries. Decedent died in March 2019. Thereafter, Deborah has

         1 For clarity, we refer to the parties by their first names.                                    No disrespect
is intended.

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served as trustee. The Trust was funded with a piece of real property on Big
Ranch Road in Napa. Deborah sold the real property in February 2022.
      In June 2022, Deborah served Duncan with an accounting of the Trust
for the period March 2019 through May 2022 (Accounting). The Accounting
itemized all of the expenses and listed the date, recipient, purpose, and
amount of each expense. In July 2022, Duncan filed a verified “Objection to
First Accounting of Debbie Miller, Trustee and Request for Surcharge of
Trustee and Other Remedies” (Objection). In September, Deborah filed a
verified “Petition for Approval of (1) Trustee’s First Account and Report of the
Elizabeth Anne Miller Residence Trust; and (2) Request for Trustee
Compensation” (Petition) that responded to the arguments in the Objection
and attached the Accounting. The trial court conducted a hearing on the
Objection and Petition in October. At the conclusion of the hearing, the court
approved the Petition and rejected the Objection. The order is also
memorialized in the court’s minutes; the court did not issue a statement of
decision. The present appeal followed.
      On appeal, Duncan contends the trial court erred in approving the
Accounting because Deborah presented “no documentary or testimonial
evidence in support of the trust expenses during the contested evidentiary
hearing.” He relies on the proposition that trustees must “prove every item of
their account by ‘satisfactory evidence’; the burden of proof is on them and
not on the beneficiary.” (Estate of McCabe (1950) 98 Cal.App.2d 503, 505,
citing Purdy v. Johnson (1917) 174 Cal. 521 (Purdy).) Further, he points out
that, while Probate Code section 1022 provides that “[a]n affidavit or verified
petition shall be received as evidence when offered in an uncontested
proceeding under this code,” “when challenged in a lower court, affidavits and
verified petitions may not be considered as evidence at a contested probate

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hearing.” (Evangelho v. Presoto (1998) 67 Cal.App.4th 615, 620 (Evangelho);
accord Est. of Lensch (2009) 177 Cal.App.4th 667, 676.)
      While it is true that Deborah did not present any testimony or
documentation to support the Accounting, Deborah points out in her brief on
appeal that Duncan failed to object to the trial court’s consideration of the
detailed itemization in the Accounting, attached to her verified Petition, as
evidence that the expenses were actually made. The record does indeed
reflect that the trial court received the Accounting as evidence of the
expenses without objection from Duncan. At the outset of the discussion
about the Accounting at the hearing, the trial court stated, “The Court has
received the request for approval of the accounting, and the request for
trustee compensation and the objections. The accounting itself -- well, how do
you want to proceed? It seems that . . . we’re going to have a hearing on it.
Any witnesses you intend to call?” Duncan’s counsel stated that he had a
couple witnesses, but that Deborah had the “burden of proof” to “substantiate
the expenses.” Deborah’s counsel pointed out that Duncan had not filed a
response to the Petition and argued the Petition was “essentially unopposed.”
The court stated the Accounting “really meets the burden of substantiating
the account” and suggested the burden was on Duncan to “contest the
amounts.” Duncan’s counsel cited the Purdy decision, argued Deborah had to
prove the expenses by “satisfactory evidence,” and suggested Deborah had to
“provide receipts.” In response, Deborah’s counsel asserted that Duncan’s
Objection had not requested an evidentiary hearing and that Deborah had
submitted the Accounting “under penalty of perjury.” The trial court
acknowledged Duncan’s objections but stated, “the Court can look at the
accounting . . . on its own, the Court can approve an accounting based on this
level of proof.” Duncan’s counsel repeated that it was Deborah’s burden to

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substantiate the expenses, but he did not argue the Accounting was
inadmissible on that issue.
      After further discussion, the trial court stated, “I do see in the Purdy
case that the burden is on the trustee to present the accounting, to
substantiate the accounting. But the Court does have the accounting in front
of it, and can see all of the line items from the accounting as it was filed. And
I can really connect the dots between the accounting and the objections. And
I do have all the supplemental documents in the objection, including text
messages that are attached.” The court then asked Duncan’s counsel what
evidence he intended to present. Counsel discussed his witnesses, and,
again, did not object to the court considering the Accounting as evidence of
the expenses.2
      In rendering its decision at the end of the hearing, the trial court
stated, “There was no evidence that after the accounting was filed that there
was a request for any of the receipts, any of the supporting documents, et
cetera, nor after the petition for the accounting was filed was there any
objections made. In fact, the petition to approve the accounting had
responses to the initial objections.”
      In his reply brief, Duncan does not dispute that he failed to argue that
the trial court could not consider the Accounting as evidence of the expenses.
Instead, he asserts that he only agreed that the court could take judicial
notice of the Accounting. He points out that a trial court may not consider
judicially noticed materials for the truth of the matters asserted. However,
appellant provides no citation to the record supporting his assertion that the

      2 The main thrust of Duncan’s evidence and argument at the hearing

was that the expenses in the Accounting were unjustified. Duncan does not
raise that issue on appeal.

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trial court only took judicial notice of the Accounting. As explained above,
the trial court’s statements make clear that it received the Accounting as
evidence, without objection from appellant.3
      Accordingly, due to his failure to object below, Duncan forfeited any
objection to the consideration of the Accounting as evidence of the expenses
described therein. (Evangelho, supra, 67 Cal.App.4th at pp. 620–621; see also
Evid. Code, § 353, subd. (a) [requiring objection to obtain reversal “by reason
of the erroneous admission of evidence”]; People v. Stevens (2015) 62 Cal.4th
325, 334 [“Generally, a timely objection is required for reversal of a judgment
on the merits on an alleged erroneous admission of the evidence.”].)4
                                 DISPOSITION
      The trial court’s order is affirmed. Costs on appeal are awarded to
respondent.

                                                      SIMONS, Acting P.J.
We concur.

BURNS, J.
CHOU, J.

(A166832)

      3 We also observe that Duncan makes his argument that the trial court

only took judicial notice of the Accounting for the first time in his reply brief.
Arguments made for the first time in a reply brief are forfeited. (Tellez v.
Rich Voss Trucking, Inc. (2015) 240 Cal.App.4th 1052, 1066.)
      4 Duncan also argues the trial court improperly placed the burden on

him of disputing expenses, but the court acknowledged that Deborah bore the
burden of substantiating the expenses.

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