IN RE: Probate Appeal of Brainard (2013)

MEMORANDUM OF DECISION

This action is an appeal from the decision of the probate court for the district of Mansfield with respect to whether the estate of Ruth M.T. Welles ought to be reopened.   The proceedings before that probate court were unrecorded, see General Statutes § 45a–186(a).   Appeals from probate court orders are unlike ordinary civil actions.  State v. Gordon, 45 Conn.App. 490, 494 (1997).   In such cases, the superior court replaces and sits as the probate court and exercises the powers of a probate court.  Id. The role of the superior court in probate appeals is to assume jurisdiction over the order under attack and try the issues connected therewith de novo.  Id. Consequently, the superior court decides the appeal “as an original proposition unfettered by, and ignoring, the result reached in the probate court.”  Id. at 494–95.   The superior court possesses the discretion of a probate court and makes its determination independent of the ruling rendered by the probate court.  Andrew v. Gorby, 237 Conn. 12, 15 (1996).

On October 8, 2013, the court heard the de novo trial of the application to reopen the estate.   The court makes the following findings of facts and rulings of law.

Connecticut resident Gideon Welles was President Abraham Lincoln's Secretary of the Navy throughout the Civil War and the administration of Andrew Johnson.   During Welles' illustrious career he acquired many items of major, historical significance and correspondingly great monetary value, including a table used during Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomattox Court House, articles once possessed by Washington, Lincoln, Custer, and other notables, and a wealth of written correspondence with storied figures, such as Sam Houston.   Personal diaries authored by Welles were also kept among his possessions.

In 1947, Secretary Welles' grandson, Thomas Welles, died and Thomas' widow, Ruth M.T. Welles, inherited a portion of Gideon Welles' artifacts as well as realty, including property known as Melody Farms in Coventry, Connecticut.   Ruth M.T. Welles lived until 1955 when she died intestate.   Her children and heirs, Suzanne Welles Brainard, Ruth Welles Smith, and Thomas G. Welles, Sr., were appointed co-administrators of her estate.

The co-administrators submitted an inventory to the Coventry probate court, which inventory listed several parcels of land, farm equipment, cattle, sundry motor vehicles, and $1,256.90 in a bank account.   None of the antiques, mementos, or documents of historical importance and rarity were included.   The inventory was signed by all three co-administrators and approved by Probate Judge Elmore Turkington on April 15, 1955.   A supplemental inventory was filed on November 12, 1955, which added to the estate a grand piano, proceeds from the sale of a dairy business, an account receivable on a chattel mortgage, and unspecified “personal effects” valued at $500.   The supplemental inventory was also submitted and signed by the three co-administrators.

During 1955, numerous claims against the estate were adjudicated and paid, as were succession taxes and the expenses of administration of the estate.   In December 1955, the three heirs executed a mutual distribution agreement which parcelled the net assets of the estate to their satisfaction.   Judge Turkington scheduled a hearing on the settlement of the estate for December 27, 1955.   On December 30, 1955, and again on January 20, 1956, the judge certified “that said estate has been duly settled in this Court.”   Apparently, no final accounting document was filed.

At the trial de novo, this court found that the appellants were aggrieved and are entitled to litigate this appeal.   The individual litigants in this case are descendants or representatives of descendants of Ruth M.T. Welles.

The appellees, who wish to reopen the estate, contend that the evidence demonstrates that Ruth M.T. Welles possessed, shortly before her death, many valuable items and documents which were omitted from the inventories filed in conjunction with the administration of the deceased's estate in 1955 and 1956.   They argue that General Statutes §§ 45a–330 and 45a–331 vest this court, acting as a probate court, with the discretion to reopen the estate, appoint a successor administrator, de bonis non, in order to ascertain what became of uninventoried items of significance and to restore them to the estate if feasible.

Section 45a–330 provides a ten-year window in which to open a decedent's estate and “administration of the estate of any person shall not be granted ․ after ten years from his [or her] decease, unless the Court of Probate upon written petition and after public notice and hearing finds that administration of such estate ought to be granted ․” Furthermore, “[i]n all cases where any person has died leaving property which is not known to those interested in the same within the time above limited, but is discovered afterwards, administration may be granted within one year after its discovery.”

This, of course, is not a case concerning after-discovered assets, nor do the appellees rely upon that portion of § 45a–330.   The court infers that the decedent's children, and co-administrators, must have been well aware of the notoriety, importance, and value surrounding the personalty in question.   These items and documents were, during their lifetimes, the subject of family lore, magazine and newspaper publications, and sought after by such entities as the Smithsonian.

Section 45a–331(a) states that “[w]henever for any cause the settlement of any decedent's estate after the appointment of a fiduciary has been delayed or not completed, the court of probate before which the same is pending may at its discretion proceed with the settlement of such estate, although more than ten years have elapsed since any proceedings have been taken ․” Subsection (b) permits appointment of a successor fiduciary in such a case.

The court first addresses the applicability of § 45a–331(a) to the circumstances which arose in the present case.   By its terms, that statutory provision only comes into play when “the settlement” of a deceased's estate is incomplete or delayed.   The estate of Ruth M.T. Welles was indisputably opened;  and had administrators appointed;  bonds posted;  inventories filed;  claims, taxes and expenses determined and paid;  and a mutual distribution accomplished.   As noted above, Judge Turkington twice certified that this estate “had been duly settled.”   The only procedural gap alleged is the absence of a record of a final accounting.   The court holds that, as used by § 45a–331(a), the lack of a final accounting is unnecessary for a deceased's estate to be regarded as “settled.”

One treatise has observed that “it seems that if the first administration has progressed to the point where claims have been barred and taxes satisfied, the distributees may acquire or retain the unadministered estate without requiring further administration,” 2 W. Locke & P. Kohn, Connecticut Probate Practice (1951), § 349, p. 225 (emphasis added).

Our Supreme Court announced such a proposition in Connecticut v. Smith, 52 Conn. 557 (1885).   In that case, a husband died and his widow “had the will proved and executed a probate bond with the defendant as surety for her faithful discharge of the duties of executrix.”  Id., 558–59.   She never filed an inventory even though her late spouse's estate comprised realty and personalty of some worth.  Id., 559.   The executrix did, however, pay all claims against the estate.  Id., 560.   The widow took possession of the remaining property and disposed of much of it during her lifetime.  Id.

Some years later, the plaintiff sought and was granted appointment as administrator, d.b.n., with the will annexed.   In that capacity, the plaintiff sued the surety alleging that the widow breached the bond by conveying away property in which she only held a life estate and which rightfully ought to have been retained in her husband's estate, or, in the alternative, that she neglected to execute her fiduciary duties by failing to file an inventory or accounting before distributing the estate property to herself.  Id., 561.

The Supreme Court first rejected the plaintiff's claim that the will only granted the widow a life estate.  Id., 564.   The Court then held that “when the [plaintiff] was appointed administrator, de bonis non, there was no estate whatever to be administered.   All the debts had been paid, and no person had any property interest therein.”  Id., 564.   This was true even though the widow had given herself absolute title to the property without ever filing an inventory, without submitting her actions to scrutiny by the probate court, and without filing an accounting.  Id., 564–65.

The Supreme Court refused to validate the plaintiff's claim on the bond, despite the procedural infirmities recounted above because the widow, in that case, was the primary beneficiary and only person with an interest in the property of the estate.  Id., 565.   No one could benefit from allowing the administrator, d.b.n., to prevail except for the administrator who would be entitled to fees for pursuing the action.  Id. “A suit on a bond of this character, must be instituted and prosecuted for the benefit of some person who has a property interest in the estate itself which the [plaintiff] cannot claim.”  Id. (Emphasis added.)

In other words, where the estate fiduciary's improprieties could have only negatively impacted the fiduciary's own personal interest as the sole beneficiary of the estate, the estate was regarded as completely administered despite the procedural informality of neglecting to file an inventory and accounting with the probate court.   This court can take judicial notice that familial heirs of a deceased person often agree informally to divide the contents of the deceased's home without listing each particular item on an inventory or accounting.   The appellee's argument would expose those settled estates to re-administration under § 45a–331(a) indefinitely.

In the present case, the three co-administrators were the only direct heirs of Ruth M.T. Welles.   They all signed and submitted the inventories;  paid the debts, expenses, and taxes of the estate;  and signed and submitted the mutual distribution document.   The probate judge certified that the estate was “duly settled.”   The absence of the final accounting fails to alter that status, Connecticut v. Smith, supra;  2 W. Locke & P. Kohn, Connecticut Probate Practice (1951), § 349, p. 225.   Therefore, § 45a–331(a) is inapplicable to resuscitate this estate which was completed fifty-eight years ago.

Nor does § 45a–330 aid the appellees in their quest.   It is true that the nature and value of Ruth M.T. Welles' estate in 1955 was atypical.   But the manner in which the sole heirs and co-administrators handled that estate was not.   It is obvious to this court that all three children of Ruth M.T. Welles were satisfied with their legacies and the division of the unique set of personal effects of their famous forebear.   Whether that distribution occurred in causa mortis or post obitum is of little consequence.   There was no credible evidence adduced at the trial before this court that any one of the three co-administrators expressed discontent with the devolution of their mother's estate in the decades which followed her demise.   No useful purpose would inure in reexamining the arrangement which satisfied the heirs at the settlement of this estate in 1955, Connecticut v. Smith, supra, 565.   See also, § 45a–331(b) which evinces a similar sentiment.

Sferrazza, S.J.

Sferrazza, Samuel J., S.J.