Probate: Second District, Division Three Concludes That Res Judicata Prevented Respondents from Relitigating Probate Dispute, and Also Deprived Trial Court of Grounds to Determine that Appellant Had to Pay Fees and Costs

Probate Case Has Nice Summary of Principles of Res Judicata/Collateral Estoppel

     The Court of Appeals early on telegraphed the train wreck that is this case with the understated observation, “The relationship between the siblings was not optimal.” Estate of Redfield, Case No. B216190 (2nd Dist. Div. 3 4/5/11) (certified for publication).

     In Estate of Redfield, “[n]early two years after the probate court approved their settlement of a will contest and dismissed with prejudice their petitions claiming that approximately $136,000 was part of the decedent’s estate,” siblings Roan and True objected to a co-administrators’ accounting for failure to include $136,000 in the residue of their mother’s estate.  Just before she died, mother had provided the third sibling, Horan, with a signed but otherwise blank withdrawal slip from one of her bank accounts, and Horan had used it to withdraw the amount in question and deposit it in her own bank account (inter vivos gift or part of the decedent’s estate?).

      After reaching a settlement and dismissing with prejudice, Roan and True reopened the dispute – successfully -- in the probate court.  “Trial was held over 20 days with 14 witnesses.”  The trial judge ruled that the will was defective, that no inter vivos gift was intended, that Horan had to deposit $136,000 into the estate or deduct it from her share, that she was to be penalized in an amount equivalent to her interest in $136,000, and that she was to be removed as co-administrator.  Ouch.

     Horan appealed.  Judgment reversed.  The problem with the trial court’s ruling was that it had no authority to reopen the settlement – all the elements of res judicata were present.  A dismissal with prejudice constituted a final judgment on the merits and worked as a retraxit; the issue decided in the prior adjudication was identical; and, the parties were the same.

     What about fees and costs?  The trial court had no grounds upon which to determine that Horan must pay fees and costs.  Now Horan contends that respondents must pay her legal bills – a determination that the trial court will get to make.

              Justice Aldrich authored the opinion, with Justices Klein and Kitching, concurring.