§ 30-2209 — General definitions

Nebraska § 30-2209

• Jurisdiction: Nebraska
• Ch. 30: Decedents' Estates; Protection of Persons and Property

Text

Subject to additional definitions contained in the subsequent
articles which are applicable to specific articles or parts, and unless the
context otherwise requires, in the Nebraska Probate Code:
(1) Application means a written request to the registrar for
an order of informal probate or appointment under part 3 of Article 24.
(2) Beneficiary, as it relates to trust beneficiaries, includes
a person who has any present or future interest, vested or contingent, and
also includes the owner of an interest by assignment or other transfer, and
as it relates to a charitable trust includes any person entitled to enforce
the trust.
(3) Child includes any individual entitled to take as a child
under the code by intestate succession from the parent whose relationship
is involved and excludes any person who is only a stepchild, a foster child,
or a grandchild or any more remote descendant.
(4) Claim, in respect to estates of decedents and protected
persons, includes liabilities of the decedent or protected person whether
arising in contract, in tort or otherwise, and liabilities of the estate which
arise at or after the death of the decedent or after the appointment of a
conservator, including funeral expenses and expenses of administration. The
term does not include estate or inheritance taxes, demands or disputes regarding
title of a decedent or protected person to specific assets alleged to be included
in the estate.
(5) Court means the court or branch having jurisdiction in
matters relating to the affairs of decedents. This court in this state is
known as county court or, for purposes of guardianship of a juvenile over
which a separate juvenile court already has jurisdiction, the county court
or separate juvenile court.
(6) Conservator means a person who is appointed by a court
to manage the estate of a protected person.
(7) Devise, when used as a noun, means a testamentary disposition
of real or personal property and, when used as a verb, means to dispose of
real or personal property by will.
(8) Devisee means any person designated in a will to receive
a devise. In the case of a devise to an existing trust or trustee, or to a
trustee or trust described by will, the trust or trustee is the devisee and
the beneficiaries are not devisees.
(9) Disability means cause for a protective order as described
by section 30-2630 .
(10) Disinterested witness to a will means any individual
who acts as a witness to a will and is not an interested witness to such will.
(11) Distributee means any person who has received property
of a decedent from his or her personal representative other than as a creditor
or purchaser. A testamentary trustee is a distributee only to the extent of
distributed assets or increment thereto remaining in his or her hands. A beneficiary
of a testamentary trust to whom the trustee has distributed property received
from a personal representative is a distributee of the personal representative.
For purposes of this provision, testamentary trustee includes a trustee to
whom assets are transferred by will, to the extent of the devised assets.
(12) Estate includes the property of the decedent, trust,
or other person whose affairs are subject to the Nebraska Probate Code as
originally constituted and as it exists from time to time during administration.
(13) Exempt property means that property of a decedent's estate
which is described in section 30-2323 .
(14) Fiduciary includes personal representative, guardian,
conservator, and trustee.
(15) Foreign personal representative means a personal representative
of another jurisdiction.
(16) Formal proceedings mean those conducted before a judge
with notice to interested persons.
(17) Guardian means a person who has qualified as a guardian
of a minor or incapacitated person pursuant to testamentary or court appointment,
but excludes one who is merely a guardian ad litem.
(18) Heirs mean those persons, including the surviving spouse,
who are entitled under the statutes of intestate succession to the property
of a decedent.
(19) Incapacitated person is as defined in section 30-2601 .
(20) Informal proceedings mean those conducted without notice
to interested persons by an officer of the court acting as a registrar for
probate of a will or appointment of a personal representative.
(21) Except for purposes of article 26 of the
Nebraska Probate Code, interested person includes heirs, devisees,
children, spouses, creditors, beneficiaries, and any others having a property
right in or claim against a trust estate or the estate of a decedent, ward,
or protected person which may be affected by the proceeding. It also includes
persons having priority for appointment as personal representative, and other
fiduciaries representing interested persons. The meaning as it relates to
particular persons may vary from time to time and must be determined according
to the particular purposes of, and matter involved in, any proceeding.
(22) Interested witness to a will means any individual who
acts as a witness to a will at the date of its execution and who is or would
be entitled to receive any property thereunder if the testator then died under
the circumstances existing at the date of its execution, but does not include
any individual, merely because of such nomination, who acts as a witness to
a will by which he or she is nominated as personal representative, conservator,
guardian, or trustee.
(23) Issue of a person means all his or her lineal descendants
of all generations, with the relationship of parent and child at each generation
being determined by the definitions of child and parent contained in the Nebraska
Probate Code.
(24) Lease includes an oil, gas, or other mineral lease.
(25) Letters include letters testamentary, letters of guardianship,
letters of administration, and letters of conservatorship.
(26) Minor means an individual under nineteen years of age,
but in case any person marries under the age of nineteen years his or her
minority ends.
(27) Mortgage means any conveyance, agreement, or arrangement
in which property is used as security.
(28) Nonresident decedent means a decedent who was domiciled
in another jurisdiction at the time of his or her death.
(29) Notice means compliance with the requirements of notice
pursuant to subdivisions (a)(1) and (a)(2) of section 30-2220 .
(30) Organization includes a corporation, government, or governmental
subdivision or agency, business trust, estate, trust, partnership, limited
liability company, or association, two or more persons having a joint or common
interest, or any other legal entity.
(31) Parent includes any person entitled to take, or who would
be entitled to take if the child died without a will, as a parent under the
Nebraska Probate Code, by intestate succession from the child whose relationship
is in question and excludes any person who is only a stepparent, foster parent,
or grandparent.
(32) Person means an individual, a corporation, an organization,
a limited liability company, or other legal entity.
(33) Personal representative includes executor, administrator,
successor personal representative, special administrator, and persons who
perform substantially the same function under the law governing their status.
(34) Petition means a written request to the court for an
order after notice.
(35) Proceeding includes action at law and suit in equity,
but does not include a determination of inheritance tax under Chapter 77,
article 20, or estate tax apportionment as provided in sections 77-2108 to 77-2112 .
(36) Property includes both real and personal property or
any interest therein and means anything that may be the subject of ownership.
(37) Protected person is as defined in section 30-2601 .
(38) Protective proceeding is as defined in section 30-2601 .
(39) Registrar refers to the official of the court designated
to perform the functions of registrar as provided in section 30-2216 .
(40) Relative or relation of a person means all persons who
are related to him or her by blood or legal adoption.
(41) Security includes any note, stock, treasury stock, bond,
debenture, evidence of indebtedness, certificate of interest or participation
in an oil, gas, or mining title or lease or in payments out of production
under such a title or lease, collateral-trust certificate, transferable share,
voting-trust certificate or, in general, any interest or instrument commonly
known as a security, or any certificate of interest or participation, any
temporary or interim certificate, receipt, or certificate of deposit for,
or any warrant or right to subscribe to or purchase, any of the foregoing.
(42) Settlement, in reference to a decedent's estate, includes
the full process of administration, distribution, and closing.
(43) Special administrator means a personal representative
as described by sections 30-2457 to 30-2461 .
(44) State includes any state of the United States, the District
of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and any territory or possession
subject to the legislative authority of the United States.
(45) Successor personal representative means a personal representative,
other than a special administrator, who is appointed to succeed a previously
appointed personal representative.
(46) Successors mean those persons, other than creditors,
who are entitled to property of a decedent under his or her will or the Nebraska
Probate Code.
(47) Supervised administration refers to the proceedings described
in Article 24, part 5.
(48) Testacy proceeding means a proceeding to establish a
will or determine intestacy.
(49) Testator means the maker of a will.
(50) Trust includes any express trust, private or charitable,
with additions thereto, wherever and however created. It also includes a trust
created or determined by judgment or decree under which the trust is to be
administered in the manner of an express trust. Trust excludes other constructive
trusts, and it excludes resulting trusts, conservatorships, personal representatives,
trust accounts as defined in Article 27, custodial arrangements pursuant to
the Nebraska Uniform Transfers to Minors Act, business trusts providing for
certificates to be issued to beneficiaries, common trust funds, voting trusts,
security arrangements, liquidation trusts, and trusts for the primary purpose
of paying debts, dividends, interest, salaries, wages, profits, pensions,
or employee benefits of any kind, and any arrangement under which a person
is nominee or escrowee for another.
(51) Trustee includes an original, additional, or successor
trustee, whether or not appointed or confirmed by court.
(52) Ward is as defined in section 30-2601 .
(53) Will means any instrument, including any codicil or other
testamentary instrument complying with sections 30-2326 to 30-2338 , which
disposes of personal or real property, appoints a personal representative,
conservator, guardian, or trustee, revokes or revises an earlier executed
testamentary instrument, or encompasses any one or more of such objects or
purposes.

Legislative History

Source: Laws 1974, LB 354, § 9, UPC § 1-201; Laws 1978, LB 650, § 1; Laws 1992, LB 907, § 26; Laws 1993, LB 121, § 193; Laws 1998, LB 1041, § 3; Laws 2011, LB157, § 29. Cross References: Nebraska Uniform Transfers to Minors Act, see section 43-2701. Annotations: A widow's suit seeking $100,000 and a camper did not qualify as a "claim" as defined by subsection (4) of this section because there were no liabilities of the decedent or the decedent's estate at issue for either the $100,000 or the camper. Instead, under the terms of the premarital agreement between the widow and the decedent, the suit for the $100,000 was a cause of action against the estate for breach of contract, and the suit for the camper was a cause of action involving disputed title of property allegedly belonging to the decedent. White v. White, 316 Neb. 616, 6 N.W.3d 204 (2024). "Any person interested in the welfare" of a protected person has standing to intervene and is not limited to those persons more narrowly defined as "interested persons" in subsection (21) of this section. In re Guardianship & Conservatorship of Cordel, 274 Neb. 545, 741 N.W.2d 675 (2007). Pursuant to subsection (4) of this section, a judgment lien on the proceeds from a sale is not a claim subject to the provisions of the Nebraska Probate Code. Pursuant to subsection (4) of this section, the Nebraska Probate Code exempts liens because a lien by definition is not a liability as that term is used in the definition of claims. McCook Nat. Bank v. Bennett, 248 Neb. 567, 537 N.W.2d 353 (1995). Subsection (4) of this section does not distinguish between legal and equitable title when excluding disputes regarding title of a decedent from the definition of "claims". Eggers v. Rittscher, 247 Neb. 648, 529 N.W.2d 741 (1995). As "distributee" is defined in subdivision (11) of this section, failure to inform court of attorney fee payments did not violate this particular supervised administration because such fees were not "distributions." In re Estate of Snover, 233 Neb. 198, 443 N.W.2d 894 (1989). An action to recover specific trust property, or its traceable product, from a decedent's estate is not a claim under subdivision (4) of this section and need not be filed as a claim against the estate. In re Estate of Chaney, 232 Neb. 121, 439 N.W.2d 764 (1989).