Snowden v. Riggins

13 S.W.3d 598, 70 Ark. App. 1, 2000 Ark. App. LEXIS 242
CourtCourt of Appeals of Arkansas
DecidedApril 5, 2000
DocketCA 99-1032
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 13 S.W.3d 598 (Snowden v. Riggins) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Arkansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Snowden v. Riggins, 13 S.W.3d 598, 70 Ark. App. 1, 2000 Ark. App. LEXIS 242 (Ark. Ct. App. 2000).

Opinion

John B. ROBBINS, Chief Judge.

This appeal comes from the probate court’s refusal to set aside an order appointing appel-lee as administratrix of the estate ofjoelaun Snowden, deceased. We hold that the order should have been set aside and, therefore, reverse and remand the case.

On May 11, 1996, Joelaun Snowden died in the crash of Valuejet Flight 592 in Dade County, Florida. He was survived by his mother, appellee Glinder Riggins, his father Grady Snowden, and two children, Jasmine Barnes and Marquela Ferguson. There is also the possibility that his survivors included a wife, appellant Dionne McClain, and another child, Christian Shack, whose mother is appellant Michelle Shack. After Joelaun’s death, his mother and father, who had been divorced since 1980, filed competing petitions to be appointed personal representative of his estate. An objection to their petitions was filed by appellants, and the objection was joined in by Alicia Barnes and Markela Ferguson, the mothers of the deceased’s two daughters. All four women were represented in the probate matter by attorney Floyd Thomas. Thomas had been retained as local counsel for these women by two out-of-state attorneys who were handling the McClain-Shack-Barnes-Ferguson wrongful-death claims resulting from the crash. In their pleading, appellants and their co-filers requested that they be appointed as administratrixes of the estate. They further alleged that the decedent was not a resident of Arkansas at the time of his death. A hearing on the matter was scheduled for December 13, 1996.

On December 6, 1996, one week before the hearing, attorney Thomas filed a motion to withdraw as appellants’ counsel. He stated in his motion that a conflict had developed between appellants’ claims and the Barnes-Ferguson claims. The court allowed the withdrawal, and an order was entered that same day.

At the December 13 hearing, Glinder Riggins and Grady Snowden appeared in person and were represented by counsel. Attorney Thomas appeared on behalf of Barnes and Ferguson. Appellants did not appear either in person or by counsel. Thomas explained to the judge that “Ms. McClain claimed to be the spouse of the deceased” and that “Michelle Shack claims to be the mother of a minor child, Christian Shack, who ... was a child of the deceased,” but that there was no proof of such claims. He therefore withdrew as attorney for appellants to avoid a conflict with Barnes and Ferguson, the mothers of the decedent’s two acknowledged children. He stated that appellant McClain, who lived in Tennessee, and appellant Shack, who lived in Michigan, were aware of the hearing and had been sent notice of his withdrawal by certified mail.

The judge allowed the hearing to proceed and told the parties that he would make no determination of heirship that day. Instead, his decision would be confined to the appointment of a personal representative. Testimony was taken, with most of it being directed to the question of whether the decedent’s mother or father would be the more suitable administrator. During the course of the testimony, some evidence concerning the decedent’s residence was adduced as a consequence. It appeared that the decedent was living and working in Nashville, Tennessee, at the time of his death. However, he had also rented a trailer in Union County from 1985 until his death and regularly spent time there (almost every weekend, according to his landlord). At the close of the evidence, the judge appointed appellee the administratrix of the estate, and her attorney was asked to prepare the order for the court’s signature. The order, as entered on December 19, 1996, not only reflected appellee’s appointment but recited that the decedent was a resident of Union County at the time of his death and that he was unmarried at the time of his death. Further, the order fisted the decedent’s survivors but did not include Dionne McClain or Christian Shack.

On December 30, 1998, two years after the above order was entered, appellants moved to set it aside. They asserted that the court did not have jurisdiction over the decedent’s estate because the decedent was a resident of Tennessee at the time of his death, and they asserted that they had not received proper notice of attorney Thomas’s withdrawal of his representation of them. Contemporaneously therewith, they asked that appellee be removed as admin-istratrix because she had excluded them from a listing of heirs, had misrepresented the decedent’s residence, and had shown animosity toward them. A hearing on these motions was held, and the judge refused to set the previous order aside. In an order entered August 3, 1999, he found that appellants had received notice of the 1996 hearing and of Thomas’s withdrawal and that any questions regarding the decedent’s residence were res judicata, having been decided at the prior hearing. Further, he affirmed his original appointment of appellee as personal representative. The order noted that no ruling was being made on appellants’ claims of heirship and that such matters would be addressed if and when the court was called upon to distribute proceeds from the plane-crash litigation.

Appellants raise three issues on appeal: 1) whether the court’s ruling that any questions concerning the decedent’s residence are res judicata; 2) whether the court should have removed appellee as administratrix; and 3) whether the court should have set aside the 1996 order because appellants did not receive proper notice of their attorney’s withdrawal. We need not address the first two issues because we hold that reversal is merited on the third.

We begin by addressing three threshold issues raised by appellee. The first is whether we have a final, appealable order in this case. Even though this appeal is brought from an interlocutory order, almost all probate court orders are appealable. Other than an order removing a fiduciary for failure to give a new bond or render an account or an order appointing a special administrator, a person aggrieved by an order of the probate court may obtain appellate review of the order. See Ark. Code Ann. § 28-1-116 (a) and (b) (1987); In re Guardianship of Vesa, 319 Ark. 574, 892 S.W.2d 491 (1995). In particular, an order denying a petition to remove a personal representative is appealable. Guess v. Going, 62 Ark. App. 19, 966 S.W.2d 930 (1998). However, when an interlocutory appeal such as this one is taken, either this court or the probate court may stay the appeal until final distribution is made, unless the order admits or denies probate of a will or appoints or refuses to appoint a personal representative. Ark. Code Ann. § 28-l-116(c) (1987). Appellee contends that, by declining to determine appellants’ heir-ship claims, the probate court impliedly stayed any appeal of its order until final distribution. We disagree. The court’s order gives no indication of any intent to curtail appellants’ right to appeal but only to clarify and restrict the scope of the order. Additionally, the order appealed from is largely concerned with the appointment of a personal representative and thus is not encompassed by subsection (c). Thus, we have an appealable order in this case.

The next threshold issue is whether the probate court had jurisdiction to consider appellants’ request to set aside a two-year-old order, given the requirements of Ark. R. Civ. P. 60(b).

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Bluebook (online)
13 S.W.3d 598, 70 Ark. App. 1, 2000 Ark. App. LEXIS 242, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/snowden-v-riggins-arkctapp-2000.