Florida Probate & Trust Litigation Blog : Florida Probate Litigation, Will Contest Lawyer & Attorney : Juan C. Antúnez : Serving Miami, Jacksonville, Tampa Saint Petersburg, Orlando, Fort Lauderdale

Copeland v. Buswell, --- So.3d ----, 2009 WL 2243701 (Fla. 2d DCA Jul 29, 2009)

Under Florida law the personal representative is the central figure in all things having to do with the probate estate. No matter how inconvenient that fact may be, you can't ignore the PR in the hopes of cutting a better deal for yourself. That's the basic take-away from this case.

In this case the estate's largest creditor (Tampa General Hospital claimed $492,224 in unpaid medical bills) tried to cut a better deal for itself by bypassing the PR and dealing directly with a third party that owed the estate money (a tortfeasor). Under the side deal the hospital got a bigger chunk of its claim paid ($300,000) and the tortfeasor cut its liability exposure to the estate by almost $200,000. Sounds clever. Everybody wins right? Wrong!

Why is the estate the big loser in this deal?

• First, by cutting out the PR the estate basically got nothing. Which means the PR had no funds with which to pay her own lawyers, or pay herself a PR's fee, or basically pay any other creditor whose claim had priority over the hospital's under Florida's probate code.
• Second, by cutting out the PR the estate was deprived of the full value of its claim. At the wrongful-death trial the judge ruled that the decedent had in fact incurred 100% of the $492,224 in unpaid medical bills being claimed by the hospital. In other words, the estate's damages claim would have been for the full amount, NOT the lower figure agreed to in the side deal.

The 2d DCA said no way to the deal, and unwound the whole thing by focusing on how it basically did an end run around the priority-of-payments scheme built into Florida's probate code:

Under section 733.707, Tampa General's claim for medical expenses would be designated as a class 4 claim to be paid after class 1, 2, or 3 claims. See § 733.707(1)(a)-(d). In this case, by virtue of [the side deal], Tampa General's class 4 claim for medical expenses improperly took precedence over class 1 claims for costs of administration and class 2 claims for funeral expenses, in contravention of the priorities established in section 733.707.

The majority's opinion does a good job of explaining the law, but they don't really comment how this deal was too cute by half. For that you need to read Judge Concurs' concurrence. Here's an excerpt:

[A]s the majority points out, once an estate is opened the decedent's creditors must settle any claims with the personal representative of the estate pursuant to Florida's probate rules and statutes. No creditor of an estate is entitled to enter into a sweetheart deal with any entity owing money to the estate that would circumvent the statutory priority of creditors set forth in section 733.707(1)(a). This prohibition on “side deals” is especially important in cases when apportionment issues among creditors could arise, such as when there are insufficient estate assets to pay all claims. Principles of equity, order, and decorum should rule the apportionment process, not insider knowledge and arbitrary favoritism.

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Buettner v. Fass, --- So.3d ----, 2009 WL 3446478 (Fla. 4th DCA Oct 28, 2009)

Why??!!, your clients will ask, do you have to start a new partition action in front of a new judge to adjudicate an existing dispute involving a decedent's homestead property if everything else the decedent owned is already subject to the probate judge's authority?

And your answer will be: "Hey, if it made sense, it wouldn't be homestead." Well, maybe that's what your inside voice would say. Your outside voice would hopefully say something like: "Because that's the law, so don't waste your time and money litigating a dispute involving homestead property in a probate court." At which point you can now point to the linked-to opinion as an example of what NOT to do:

Appellant .  .  .  appeals an order evicting him from the entire premises of the apartment building and directing the personal representative to recover possession of the entire premises. Although no transcript is provided, and the appellant failed to appear at the hearing on the eviction, the order is fundamentally erroneous on its face in that it purports to evict appellant from the homestead premises and place them in the possession of the personal representative. As the court had already determined that the property was homestead, and thus not part of the decedent's estate, the personal representative had no possessory interest in it. See Herrilka v. Yates, 13 So.3d 122 (Fla. 4th DCA 2009); Harrell v. Snyder, 913 So.2d 749 (Fla. 5th DCA 2000).

We reverse the order of eviction with instructions to modify the order to exclude that portion of the property which the court has already designated as homestead. While the personal representative claims that appellant is thwarting the personal representative's ability to maintain the remainder of the property, remedies must be sought other than to dispossess appellant from his own property where the personal representative has no ownership interest in the homestead. See, e.g., Wescott v. Wescott, 487 So.2d 1099 (Fla. 5th DCA 1986) (holding that husband could seek partition of property despite wife's claim of homestead). 

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LoCascio v. Sharpe, --- So.3d ----, 2009 WL 3448111 (Fla.App. 3 Dist. Oct 28, 2009)

Silvia Locascio's brutally beaten corpse was found in her home (pictured below) on October 30, 2001. Eventually her husband and brother-in-law were found guilty of her murder - based in large part on the testimony of the couple's only son. Click here, here for more on the back story to this tragic case.

Eight years after his mother's murder Edward J. LoCascio (Son) argued that under F.S. 732.802 (Florida's "slayer statute") his father had forfeited all property rights in the couple's marital assets effective as of the date of the murder. The end-goal of this strategy was to claw back the hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees father spent on his defense prior to his murder conviction [click here].

I recently wrote about a Georgia case where that state's slayer statue was also cited as the basis for clawing back attorney fees paid by a surviving widow who ultimately plead guilty to murdering her husband. The slayer-statute argument didn't work in Georgia [click here], and according to the 3d DCA, it won't work in Florida either.

[1] Does a Murdering Spouse Forfeit His 50% Share in Couple's Home? NO

When a person murders his or her spouse, under Florida law the couple's jointly-titled residence is deemed converted into tenants-in-common property. Result: murderer doesn't inherit the couple's house; instead the house is deemed owned 50/50 by the murderer and the deceased spouse's estate. In the linked-to case Son argued that under Florida's slayer statue his father's 50% share of the couple's residence was forfeited to his mother's estate as of the date of her death. Both the trial-court judge and the 3d DCA rejected this argument:

The Son commenced two appeals to this Court. In case no. 3D08-1711, the Son argues that the marital residence (the decedent's and murderer's homestead) passed in full to him as the mother's sole heir. The Son bases this argument on the phrase in subsection 732.802(1) [of Florida's slayer statute] that “the estate of the decedent passes as if the killer had predeceased the decedent.” Had [his father] predeceased [his mother], the Son argues, then [his mother's estate] would have been vested with sole title to the residence at the time of her death, and that exclusive title would then have passed to the Son under Florida's law of intestate succession.

We have previously rejected this argument. In Capoccia v. Capoccia, 505 So.2d 624 (Fla. 3d DCA 1987), this Court reconciled subsections (1) and (2) of the statute, explaining that “the express language of subsection (2) does not call for the complete termination of the killer's interest in the property but merely the termination of the right of survivorship.” Id. at 624-25. Subsection (2) states that the killing “effects a severance of the interest of the decedent,” codifying a prior equitable doctrine that the property in such a case is “treated as if it had been formerly held as a tenancy in common.” Id. at 624.

[2] Does a Murdering Spouse Forfeit 100% of All Marital Assets? NO

Son also argued that his father had forfeited 100% of his property rights in the couple's marital assets effective as of the date of his mother's death. Again Son lost at the trial-court level and before the 3d DCA. In the quoted-text below the focus on clawing back legal fees becomes clear.

In the second appeal, Case No. 3D09-118, the Son maintains that the then-personal representative, plaintiff in the civil lawsuit, was erroneously denied relief against Edward S. LoCascio's property. Specifically, the personal representative sought a constructive trust over all marital property, including Edward S. LoCascio's rights or interests in that property. Instead, the final judgment of constructive trust was limited to all assets of the decedent, including any such assets “titled or assigned in the name of the defendant Edward S. LoCascio.” The Son maintains that the significance of this alleged error-otherwise appearing moot because of the estate's judgment liens in amounts tens of millions of dollars greater than the murderer's known assets-is that the constructive trust over his father's assets would relate back to the date of his mother's death.FN6

[FN6.] During the years between the date of the murder and the entry of the judgment liens against Edward S. LoCascio for over $75,000,000, he apparently incurred substantial indebtedness to one or more law firms for his defense in the murder trial and representation in the probate and wrongful death cases.

The slayer statute is not, as presently written, a forfeiture statute awarding all of a killer's property to the estate of the victim. Nor does the pre-statutory equitable principle that “no one shall be permitted to profit by his own wrongdoing” include any such forfeiture of the killer's separate property. Capoccia, 505 So.2d at 624. Accordingly, we find no error in the limitation imposed by the trial judge in the final judgment of constructive trust against Edward S. LoCascio.

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A year ago things looked pretty bleak for attorney Ben Kuehne here in Miami and a couple of Georgia lawyers who were arrested and apparently spent a night in jail after their client was forced to forfeit estate assets under Georgia's Slayer Statute [click here]. All were on the receiving end of criminal prosecutions for arguably doing nothing other than getting paid for representing unpopular clients.

Fast forward a year: the Kuehne prosecution has caved in on itself [click here] and in a ruling that should warm the hearts of probate lawyers everywhere, Georgia's Supreme Court confirmed in Levenson v. Word (No. S09G0336) that you can't use a Slayer Statute to target lawyers for simply doing their jobs. Florida's Slayer Statute comes up with some frequency [click here, here], so the threat of being targetted in the same way the Georgia lawyers were targetted can't be shrugged off by probate lawyers in this state.  One day you may need to refer to the Levenson opinion.

Here's how the Levenson opinion was reported in 'Slayer Statute' Doesn't Bar Lawyers From Keeping Fees Paid by Executrix, Judges Rule:

Georgia's defense bar on Monday welcomed a state Supreme Court decision confirming that legal fees paid to two attorneys by the executor of an estate prior to her subsequent guilty plea for murder of her husband could not be clawed back to the estate.

The court ruled that Georgia's "slayer statute," which forbids a murderer from profiting from the death of his or her victim, could not be used to bar access to the deceased's assets until there has been a guilty plea, conviction or other "clear and convincing evidence in any judicial proceeding."

"We are pleased the Supreme Court unanimously got it right," said Christine Koehler, president of the Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, which had filed an amicus brief and supplied additional counsel supporting attorneys Gerald P. "Jerry" Word and Maryellen Simmons as they sought to retain $75,000 in fees paid to prepare a death-penalty defense for Debra Post. Post pleaded guilty in return for a life sentence in the Oct. 25, 2001, murder-for-hire of her husband, Jerry Post, in Douglasville, Ga.

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