Court Opinion

ID: 9702329
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 23:07:07.289008+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:36.650441
License: Public Domain

KING, Senior Judge,
dissenting:
Because I disagree with the majority’s holding that all creditors who have filed in the domiciliary probate proceeding in Puerto Rico and of whom the personal representative had actual knowledge should be treated as if they had filed in the District of Columbia pursuant to D.C.Code § 20-343(d) (2001), I respectfully dissent. The majority’s holding renders D.C.Code § 20-343(d) essentially meaningless. That statute provides that “[ujnless a release of a validly recorded claim has been recorded or the claim has finally been determined in favor of the personal representative, such claim shall constitute a lien against all real property owned by the decedent in the District of Columbia for a period of 12 years from date of death .... ” The claim is otherwise barred if the complaint is not filed within “60 days [of] mailing of the notice disallowing the claim.” D.C.Code § 20-908(a) (2001). By filing her complaint, Ms. Meerschaert availed herself of the opportunity the statute afforded her, a course of action the other claimants chose not to pursue.
The majority has broadly interpreted District of Columbia v. Gantt, 558 A.2d 1120 (D.C.1989), to hold that the personal representative may not disallow any claim against the estate if the representative has actual knowledge of the claim, even if the claim was filed outside of the District.1 The majority equates Ms. Meerschaert, *776who underwent the requisite procedural hoops in the District by filing a verified complaint and thereby creating a lien on the property and preserving her claim, to the other claimants who filed only in Puer-to Rico. Gantt should not be stretched beyond its relatively narrow holding to permit attribution of actual knowledge to claims not filed in the District. Rather, D.C.Code § 20-343(d) establishes precisely the right that Ms. Meerschaert undertook to secure — the right to create a lien in these circumstances.
The majority also cites commentary from Sackett, Chapman, Brown & Cross v. Osgood, 80 U.S.App. D.C. 99, 149 F.2d 825 (1945). The decision in Sackett hinges upon D.C.Code § 18-501 (1940), the predecessor statute to § 20-343. The predecessor statute protected local creditors, requiring that only creditors domiciled in the District could make a claim against the estate. The Sackett court found that the predecessor statute did not apply because of the non-local residency status of the creditors in that case. The language in the predecessor statute, however, is no longer relevant or applicable because the revised statute at issue, § 20-343, allows any creditor to file a claim in a foreign estate proceeding. Sackett, therefore, has no applicability to the instant case in which non-local creditors may file claims in the District.
I would affirm the trial court’s granting of summary judgment in favor of Ms. Meerschaert. She filed her claims in the District of Columbia, the foreign estate proceeding, successfully creating a statutory lien on the property, placing her in a different and more advantageous position than the other claimants, who filed only in Puerto Rico.

. The Gantt court’s decision, however, applied only to claims filed in the District of Columbia, even if not in conformance with statutory formalities.