Cooper v. D'Amore

881 F.3d 247
CourtCourt of Appeals for the First Circuit
DecidedFebruary 2, 2018
Docket17-1442P
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 881 F.3d 247 (Cooper v. D'Amore) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the First Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Cooper v. D'Amore, 881 F.3d 247 (1st Cir. 2018).

Opinion

STAHL, Circuit Judge.

In 2003, Peter M. Cooper, Jr. (“decedent”) established .an Individual Retirement Account (“IRA”) with Mesirow Financial (“Mesirow IRA”), and designated his then wife, Alyssa Jane D’Amore (“D’Amore”), as beneficiary. In 2006, the couple divorced, but decedent never revoked the beneficiary designation. In 2011, decedent transferred the majority of his Mesirow IRA assets to a TD Ameritrade IRA. In 2012, upon decedent’s death, Mesi-row distributed the assets remaining in the Mesirow IRA to D’Amore. Carol Diane Cooper, the mother and primary beneficiary of decedent, and John S. Cooper, the executor of decedent’s estate, (collectively “the Coopers”) sued D’Amore, claiming that the Mesirow assets should have been distributed to decedent’s estate. The district court ultimately granted summary judgment for the Coopers.

After careful consideration, we conclude that the district court improperly granted summary judgment for the Coopers because decedent’s transfer did not terminate the Mesirow IRA.

I. Background

In 2003, decedent, an investment executive/bond trader at Mesirow Financial Inc., established a Mesirow IRA through his employer. The Mesirow Custodial Agreement governed the IRA. 1 At the time, decedent was married to D’Amore and designated her as the beneficiary. Decedent managed multiple financial investments for himself as well as other family members. In 2006, decedent and D’Amore divorced and entered into a Marital Settlement Agreement which provided, in part, that “[e]ach party shall continue to own as his or her own separate property any Individual Retirement Account (IRA), pension or retirement plan in his or her name, and each does hereby waive any claim to such account of the other.” Notwithstanding the Marital Settlement Agreement, decedent did not revoke the beneficiary designation for the Mesirow IRA.

On August 18, 2011, decedent completed a TD Ameritrade “Account Transfer Form” in order to transfer his assets from the Mesirow IRA to a TD Ameritrade IRA, One provision in the form stated: “This is a total transfer from a brokerage account.” Decedent checked the box next to this provision. Another provision in the form, entitled “Transfer Agreement,” provided: “Unless otherwise indicated, I authorize the Transferor to liquidate any nontransferable proprietary money market fund assets and mutual fund assets that are part of my account and to transfer the resulting credit balance to my account with TD Ameritrade.” Decedent did not initial this portion of the form.

On September 7, 2011, decedent received a letter from Mesirow Financial, entitled “Non-Deliverable Assets(s).” The letter provided that certain assets in decedent’s account were “not transferable.” The letter also provided that if a “request is not received within 60 days your account will be re-established.” On September 24, 2011, decedent sent an email to a financial advisor at Mesirow Financial, asking if he could keep the nontransferable assets in the account.

Decedent continued to receive financial statements for the Mesirow IRA until he died. Decedent’s Mesirow statements post-transfer included the same account number listed on his statements pre-transfer. Unlike the earlier statements which listed D’Amore as the primary beneficiary, the statements post-transfer indicated that the primary beneficiary designation was “not provided.”

On July 21, 2012, decedent died. Thereafter, Mesirow distributed the assets that remained in the Mesirow IRA to D’Amore pursuant to the beneficiary designation.

In October of 2014, the Coopers sued D’Amore, seeking to recover the assets distributed by Mesirow to D’Amore. The parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment. On November 10, 2015, the district court granted summary judgment for the Coopers, finding that upon divorce, D’Amore’s beneficiary designation was revoked pursuant to the Illinois Trusts and Dissolutions of Marriage Act. Cooper v. D’Amore, No. CV 14-14041-RGS, 2015 WL 6962834, at *4 (D. Mass. Nov. 10,2015). On November 20, 2015, D’Amore filed a motion for reconsideration. Thereafter, the court determined that its summary judgment decision was improper because Delaware law, not Illinois law, governed the IRA. On December 4, 2015, the court imposed sanctions on the Coopers’ counsel for the failure to turn over an authenticated copy of the Delaware Charter Trust document, and granted D’Amore’s motion for summary judgment.

The Coopers appealed and this Court vacated the district court’s entry of summary judgment on behalf of D’Amore because it found that the Delaware Charter IRA Trust Agreement was not in effect at the time the assets were distributed in 2012. Cooper v. D’Amore, 663 Fed.Appx. 1, 2-3 (1st Cir. 2016). 2

On remand, the parties again moved for summary judgment. This time, the district court granted summary judgment for the Coopers. The court explained that from 2006, when the couple divorced, until August 2011, when the decedent transferred his assets, D’Amore was the beneficiary, but when decedent requested a transfer of all of his assets in 2011, the beneficiary designation was automatically revoked and the account terminated. Cooper v. D’Amore, No. CV 14-14041-RGS, 2017 WL 74279, at *4-*5 (D. Mass. Jan. 6, 2017). This timely appeal followed.

II. Analysis

We review de novo a district court’s grant of summary judgment. Jakobiec v. Merrill Lynch Life Ins. Co., 711 F.3d 217, 223 (1st Cir. 2013). “Where the parties file cross-motions for summary judgment, we employ the same standard of review, but view each motion separately, drawing all inferences in favor of the non-moving party.” Fadili v. Deutsche Bank Nat'l. Tr. Co., 772 F.3d 951, 953 (1st Cir. 2014).

Before considering the merits of the appeal, we first address the Coopers’ contention that D’Amore failed to properly raise her arguments before the district court on summary judgment. 3 “[I]t is a virtually ironclad rule that a party may not advance for the first time on appeal either a new argument or an old argument that depends on a new factual predicate.” Cochran v. Quest Software, Inc., 328 F.3d 1, 11-12 (1st Cir. 2003). We find that D’Amore argued before the district court that the Mesirow IRA never terminated. 4 Because that issue is dispositive, we need not consider whether D’Amore’s other arguments raised on appeal were properly preserved before the district court.

In granting summary judgment for the Coopers, the district court determined that “because Peter Cooper’s written direction for a total asset transfer [in 2011] terminated the [Mesirow] Custodial Agreement, it also terminated the beneficiary designation associated with the custodial account.” Cooper, 2017 WL 74279, at *3.

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Bluebook (online)
881 F.3d 247, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/cooper-v-damore-ca1-2018.