Martin v. Martin

687 So. 2d 903, 1997 WL 30815
CourtDistrict Court of Appeal of Florida
DecidedJanuary 29, 1997
Docket95-1801
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 687 So. 2d 903 (Martin v. Martin) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court of Appeal of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Martin v. Martin, 687 So. 2d 903, 1997 WL 30815 (Fla. Ct. App. 1997).

Opinion

687 So.2d 903 (1997)

Eugene MARTIN and Larry Martin, Appellants,
v.
Jean MARTIN, Appellee.

No. 95-1801.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fourth District.

January 29, 1997.
Clarification and Rehearing Denied February 27, 1997.

*904 George Elias, Jr. of the Law Offices of George Elias, Jr., Miami, for appellants.

William J. Palmer and David Lawrence, III of Adorno & Zeder, P.A., Miami, for appellee.

KLEIN, Judge.

Appellants are the sons of the decedent and appellee was the decedent's second wife. The sons brought this suit against the widow, alleging that she tortiously interfered with their inheritance rights, causing the decedent to reduce, over time, the amount they would inherit from him. The trial court entered a summary judgment against the sons, concluding that their failure to contest the will in probate precludes this suit. We reverse.

The decedent and appellee, when they married in 1969, signed a prenuptial agreement limiting appellee's inheritance to $50,000. That agreement was revoked in 1982, when the decedent executed a pour-over will and revocable inter vivos trust. Under that estate plan the appellee received a substantial portion of the decedent's estate, and the sons each received 25%. Decedent amended the trust in 1983, and executed a new and final pour-over will in August 1989. That will also poured over into the 1982 trust, which decedent again amended in August 1989.

Although the 1989 will remained in effect until his death, the decedent executed a third amendment to the trust in January 1990 and a "restated and amended revocable trust agreement" in May 1991. Decedent passed away in September 1991 leaving an estate worth approximately $8 million, over 95% of which was in the trust. Under the will and trust in effect at decedent's death, one son received 20% of his estate and the other the income on 10% which remained in trust.

When decedent's 1989 will was submitted for probate, the sons initiated a challenge to that will, but dropped it, and the estate was probated pursuant to that will. They filed this suit, however, against decedent's widow, in 1993, alleging that she had tortiously interfered, by fraudulently and maliciously alienating their father from them, which caused him to reduce what they would inherit. Included in their allegations was the fact that their father had become ill with cancer prior to executing the 1989 will and trust, and was thus more susceptible to their stepmother's improper influence.

The trial court concluded that the sons' claims for tortious interference were barred because they had not been pursued in the probate proceeding, citing DeWitt v. Duce, 408 So.2d 216 (Fla.1981). In DeWitt, a case of first impression, the Florida supreme court held that a claim for tortiously interfering with an inheritance by wrongfully procuring a will must be pursued in the "probate proceedings," if plaintiff has an adequate remedy in probate. In DeWitt, the plaintiffs did not challenge the will in the probate proceedings, but subsequently filed suit for tortious interference in regard to the will. Their allegations of tortious interference consisted of undue influence in procuring a new will when the testator lacked testamentary capacity.

After reviewing cases from other jurisdictions, the court concluded the attack on the will was barred:

Applying the general principles we have reviewed to the case at hand, one can readily see that appellants had an adequate *905 remedy in the probate proceedings. The record reveals that the prior will which is favorable to appellants is extant. If this earlier will were the true testamentary embodiment of the testator's intent, appellants should simply have offered this will while attacking the later will on grounds of undue influence and lack of testamentary capacity. If they had succeeded in this challenge and established this earlier will, the probate court could have given them everything to which they claim entitlement. (citation, footnote omitted).

DeWitt at 220.

Appellants argue that this case is distinguishable from DeWitt because in the present case they did not have an adequate remedy in the probate proceedings. Their position finds some support in Davison v. Feuerherd, 391 So.2d 799 (Fla. 2d DCA 1980), which was discussed in DeWitt.

In Davison plaintiff's complaint for tortious interference with a bequest through a revocable trust was dismissed for failure to state a cause of action. The plaintiff had not raised the tortious interference claim with the trust in the probate proceedings, although plaintiff had contested the will on lack of testamentary capacity. The second district concluded that tortious interference with an expected gift or bequest was a recognized cause of action, and further concluded that the plaintiffs were not precluded, by virtue of the position they took in the probate proceedings, from bringing the later action.

When our supreme court decided DeWitt, it distinguished Davison:

In applying the general rule to Florida cases in this area, a certain consistency may be observed. Cases which allow the action for tortious interference with a testamentary expectancy are predicated on the inadequacy of probate remedies, although this is not articulated. Hence Davison v. Feuerherd, 391 So.2d 799 (Fla. 2d DCA 1980), involved interference with expectancies from a revocable trust a matter apparently outside of probate jurisdiction.

DeWitt, 408 So.2d at 219.

The probate statute involved in DeWitt, section 733.103(2), Fla. Statutes (1977), which still exists in that form, provided:

In any collateral action or proceeding relating to devised property, the probate of a will in Florida shall be conclusive of its due execution; that it was executed by a competent testator, free of fraud, duress, mistake, and undue influence; and of the fact that the will was unrevoked on the testator's death.

The trial court in DeWitt concluded that the above statute prohibited plaintiffs' wrongful interference action because it would have been "relitigating issues of undue influence and testamentary capacity." DeWitt at 218. In concluding that the trial court was correct, the supreme court characterized section 733.103(2) as "little more than the codification of the common-law rule against collateral attack and is predicated on principles of res judicata and collateral estoppel ..." DeWitt at 221. As we said earlier, the court concluded in DeWitt that the plaintiffs could have obtained all of the relief they were seeking, by attacking the will in probate court, on grounds of undue influence and lack of testamentary capacity, and were thus barred from bringing their tortious interference action.

Whether the sons can proceed with their tortious interference claim in the present case, accordingly, depends on whether they could have obtained that relief by attacking the will during probate. In the present case the relief the sons seek is damages in an amount equal to the value of the assets which, but for the widow's improper conduct from 1982 through the amended trust executed in May 1991, they would have received from their father's estate.

Although the widow recognizes that this case is distinguishable from DeWitt, in that the tortious interference suit in DeWitt involved the validity of a will, and the present case involves a trust, she argues that the DeWitt rule also applies where there is a trust, citing

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
687 So. 2d 903, 1997 WL 30815, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/martin-v-martin-fladistctapp-1997.