In RE ESTATES OF McLEAN

2010 OK CIV APP 24, 231 P.3d 727
CourtCourt of Civil Appeals of Oklahoma
DecidedDecember 4, 2009
Docket106,200. Released for Publication by Order of the Court of Civil Appeals of Oklahoma, Division No. 3
StatusPublished

This text of 2010 OK CIV APP 24 (In RE ESTATES OF McLEAN) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Civil Appeals of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In RE ESTATES OF McLEAN, 2010 OK CIV APP 24, 231 P.3d 727 (Okla. Ct. App. 2009).

Opinion

231 P.3d 727 (2009)
2010 OK CIV APP 24

In the Matter of the ESTATES OF Bartley John David McLEAN and Beulah Simpson McLean, same person as Beulah S. McLean, both deceased.
John L. Branson, Jeffrey Branson, and Jimmie Kay Williams, Appellants,
v.
Jael McLean, Marcus Tye McLean, and Jaime Carol McLean, Appellees.

No. 106,200. Released for Publication by Order of the Court of Civil Appeals of Oklahoma, Division No. 3.

Court of Civil Appeals of Oklahoma, Division No. 3.

December 4, 2009.
Certiorari Denied February 22, 2010.

*728 Doug Friesen, Oklahoma City, OK, for Appellants.

Thomas B. Goodwin, Cheyenne, OK, for Appellee Jael McLean.

Thomas S. Ivester, Ivester, Ivester, & Invester, Sayre, OK, for Appellees Marcus Tye McLean, and Jaime Carol McLean.

LARRY JOPLIN, Judge.

¶ 1 Appellants John L. Branson, Jeffrey Branson, and Jimmie Kay Williams (individually, by name, or collectively, Appellants) seek review of the trial court's order determining Appellees Jael McLean, Marcus Tye McLean, and Jaime Carol McLean (Appellees) to be sole and only heirs of Bartley John David McLean, Deceased, the pretermitted heir of Beulah Simpson McLean, Deceased. In this proceeding, Appellants challenge the trial court's refusal to admit evidence of the intentional omission of Bartley from Beulah's Will.

¶ 2 Beulah Simpson McLean had two children, a daughter and a son, Bartley John David McLean. Beulah's daughter (and her child) died in an automobile accident sometime prior to 1988.

¶ 3 In 1988, Beulah, a Texas resident, executed her Last Will and Testament in Texas. *729 In her Will, Beulah devised all of her estate to her nephew John L. Branson, nephew Jerry L. Branson, and Jimmie Kay Williams, in equal shares, and, if any beneficiary predeceased her, devised "the share of my estate which he or she would have received to his or her children who survive[d]" her.[1] Beulah did not mention Bartley.

¶ 4 Bartley died in 2000, survived by three children, Appellees Jael McLean, Marcus Tye McLean, and Jaime Carol McLean. Beulah died in 2002. At the time of her death, Beulah owned the surface and a fraction of the minerals underlying one hundred sixty (160) acres of real property in Roger Mills County, Oklahoma.

¶ 5 In 2006, nephew John L. Branson filed his Petition for Probate of Beulah's Will in the trial court.[2] Over John L. Branson's objection, the trial court held that, prior to her death, Beulah owned a fractional interest in the minerals underlying the Roger Mills County property, and Beulah validly conveyed one-half of her interest in the surface of the Roger Mills County property to her son, Bartley.[3]

¶ 6 Appellees subsequently filed their Applications to Share in Beulah's estate as the children of her omitted son, Bartley, and Beulah's sole and only heirs at law. Appellants objected. To the objection, Appellants attached an order of a Texas District Court severing the relationship between Beulah and Bartley with Jael McLean.[4]

¶ 7 At the hearing on Appellees' claim and Appellants' objection, Appellants offered a videotape of Beulah during her initial interview with the Texas attorney who drafted her Will. By offer of proof, Appellants said the tape reflected Beulah's intentional omission of Bartley from her Will, and that the tape was admissible under Texas law, the law in effect where Beulah made her Will. Appellees responded, arguing Beulah did not express her intentional omission of Bartley in her Will, and, under Oklahoma law, absent any ambiguity in the Will, extrinsic evidence was inadmissible to show such intent.

¶ 8 On consideration of the parties' arguments, the trial court held:

.... Beulah ... omitted to provide in her will for her son, Bartley ..., who predeceased her leaving [Appellees] as his sole and only issue.
[T]he omission by Beulah ... to provide for her son does not appear from the four corners of her Will to have been intentional. There is no ambiguity in the text of the Will and insufficient evidence of latent ambiguity to warrant resort to extrinsic evidence to establish intent. The children of the son of Beulah ... are pretermitted heirs entitled to intestate shares of her Oklahoma estate.

The trial court accordingly awarded Beulah's Oklahoma property to Appellees in equal shares. Appellants appeal.

¶ 9 "Probate proceedings are of equitable cognizance." In the Matter of the Estate of Holcomb, 2002 OK 90, ¶ 8, 63 P.3d 9, 13. (Footnotes omitted.) "While an appellate court will examine and weigh the record proof, it must abide by the law's presumption that the nisi prius decision is legally correct and cannot be disturbed unless found to be clearly contrary to the weight of the evidence or to some governing principle of law." Id. (Emphasis original.) "If legally correct, a district court's ruling will not be reversed because of its faulty reasoning, erroneous finding of fact or its consideration of an immaterial issue."

¶ 10 Section 132 of title 84, O.S.2001, provides:

*730 When any testator omits to provide in his will for any of his children, or for the issue of any deceased child unless it appears that such omission was intentional, such child, or the issue of such child, must have the same share in the estate of the testator, as if he had died intestate,....

Section 152 of title 84, O.S.2001, provides:

In case of uncertainty, arising upon the face of a will, as to the application of any of its provisions, the testator's intention is to be ascertained from the words of the will, taking into view the circumstances under which it was made, exclusive of his oral declarations.

(Emphasis added.)

¶ 11 Relevant to this appeal, the Oklahoma Supreme Court has consistently held:

Title 84 O.S.1991 § 132 provides that if a testator fails to provide for the issue of a deceased child, the grandchild shall share in the estate as if the testator had died intestate. The purpose of § 132 is to protect an issue's right to take unless the will itself gives a clear expression of an intentional omission. In interpreting § 132, we have consistently held that the intent to disinherit an heir must appear upon the face of the will in strong and convincing language....

In the Matter of the Estate of Hoobler, 1996 OK 56, ¶ 8, 925 P.2d 13, 17. Accord, In the Matter of the Estate of Woodward, 1991 OK 25, ¶ 5, 807 P.2d 262, 264. Moreover:

.... A latent ambiguity will arise from a fact or circumstance extraneous to the text which renders the meaning uncertain. [Wh]ere there is no ambiguity but only silence ... the law's command has supplied its own answer. The pretermitted-heir statute superimposes itself upon the silent will to establish heirship in the protected person. The status once so created by force of law cannot be erased by parol. The needed intent for the heir's omission cannot come dehors the will from sources not testamentary in character.

Crump's Estate v. Freeman, 1980 OK 80, ¶ 4, 614 P.2d 1096, 1098. "Parol evidence was not allowed to show the testator's intent to disinherit his granddaughter in Crump." In the Matter of the Estate of Flowers, 1993 OK 19, ¶ 13, 848 P.2d 1146, 1152.

¶ 12 In

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Related

In Re Adams' Estate
1950 OK 201 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1950)
Estate of Crump v. Freeman
614 P.2d 1096 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1980)
Estate of Hoobler
1996 OK 56 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1996)
Dean v. Moore
1962 OK 177 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1962)
Matter of Estate of Flowers
848 P.2d 1146 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1993)
Price v. Johnson
428 P.2d 978 (New Mexico Supreme Court, 1967)
Matter of Estate of Woodward
1991 OK 25 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1991)
In Re Estate of Holcomb
2002 OK 90 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 2002)
Bacus v. Burns
1915 OK 401 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1915)
In Re Estates of McLean
2010 OK CIV APP 24 (Court of Civil Appeals of Oklahoma, 2009)
Hooper v. Clinkingbeard
1993 OK 19 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1993)
Crossett Lumber Co. v. Files
149 S.W. 908 (Supreme Court of Arkansas, 1912)

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Bluebook (online)
2010 OK CIV APP 24, 231 P.3d 727, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-estates-of-mclean-oklacivapp-2009.