Opinion
No. 22243-8-III.
Filed: June 3, 2004. UNPUBLISHED OPINION
Appeal from Superior Court of Spokane County. Docket No. 83-4-00479-1. Judgment or order under review. Date filed: 06/26/2003. Judge signing: Hon. Kathleen M O'Connor.
Counsel for Appellant(s), Linnwood Douglas Sampson, Attorney at Law, 1201 N Ash St, Spokane, WA 99201-2801.
Counsel for Respondent(s), Brant Stevens, Attorney at Law, 539 W Sharp Ste D, Spokane, WA 99201.
After 20 years, a probated estate remained unsettled. The superior court voided a creditor's claim that, with 20 years' accrued interest, was worth more than the estate. The court accepted estate beneficiary William Lenz's defense of laches. We affirm the court's exercise of its broad discretion when sitting in probate.
FACTS
Maynard and Eva Mae Lenz divorced in 1982. The court awarded Eva a 240-acre farm as her separate property and granted Maynard a lien on the property for $224,000, with interest at 10 percent per annum to begin after 18 months. The court ordered Eva to refinance the farm and pay off Maynard with semi-annual payments of $15,000. If she could not refinance within six months, the court ordered Eva to sell the land and give Maynard his $224,000.
Maynard and Eva Lenz both died within a few months of the decree and before anything was done about the lien. The 240 acres had not been refinanced or sold, and no payment had been made on Maynard's lien. Maynard left his entire estate in trust for his and Eva's youngest child, David, when he turned 25.
Eva's nonintervention will was admitted to probate on May 4, 1983. She left 100 of the 240 acres to three of her and Maynard's six children, including Maynard's beneficiary, David. The remaining 140 acres went to the other three children, including William, the respondent in this appeal. The will authorized Eva's personal representative to sell the land as necessary to settle the estate. The excess proceeds of any sale were to be divided equally between the six children.
In July 1983, Maynard's estate filed a creditor's claim against Eva's estate for the $224,000 lien. The claim was timely under the probate statute. And Eva's personal representative accepted it.
Twenty years passed, during which occasional attempts were made to induce Eva's personal representative to settle the estate. In 1988, Maynard's personal representative demanded that Eva's estate either allow or reject Maynard's creditor's claim. In 1996, Robert Lenz, another of the Lenz children and a beneficiary under Eva's will, moved for special probate proceedings to obtain an accounting from Eva's personal representative. Nothing came of any of these efforts.
Maynard's beneficiary, David, turned 25 in 1994. In March 2002, David took over as personal representative for Maynard's estate — evidently also still in probate. By 2002, the sole remaining asset of Eva's estate was the 240 acres.
On October 3, 2002, acting through counsel, Eva's personal representative asked the probate court to authorize the sale of a portion of the undistributed estate land to pay him for his professional services. He proposed that the remainder of the property be deeded over to Maynard's estate in partial satisfaction of its creditor's claim. The creditor's claim with accumulated interest was now worth over $644,000 — more than the total value of Eva's estate.
Acting for his mother's estate, William Lenz filed a motion asking the probate court to void the creditor's claim. William argued that the 10-year statute of limitations on judgment liens under RCW 4.56.210(1) expired on April 17, 1992. And he argued that the judgment lien was unenforceable under RCW 6.17.020(7), which provides that no judgment is enforceable after 20 years. A week later, William filed a second motion to void the creditor's claim on the ground of laches.
The probate court held a hearing. Maynard's estate urged the court to uphold the old lien claim and leave David as sole owner of the 240 acres. Counsel for Eva's personal representative also urged the court to preserve the creditor's claim and wipe out Eva's estate.
The court concluded that Maynard's estate "failed to take the necessary action to satisfy the claim in a timely manner." Clerk's Papers (CP) at 172. And the court concluded that a 20-year delay was not reasonable and resulted in damages to Eva's estate. And so the court voided the creditor's claim based on the equitable doctrine of laches. Maynard's estate appeals.
DISCUSSION Equitable Powers of Probate Court
The court here acted within the broad discretion exercised by the superior court sitting in probate. The court may issue any orders necessary to settle a decedent's estate. RCW 11.96A.040. And we review those equitable rulings for abuse of discretion. In re Proceedings of King County for Foreclosure of Liens, 123 Wn.2d 197, 204, 867 P.2d 605 (1994); In re Determination of Rights to Use Surface Waters of Yakima River Drainage Basin, 112 Wn. App. 729, 748, 51 P.3d 800 (2002). Discretion here means "`sound judgment exercised with regard to what is right under the circumstances and without doing so arbitrarily or capriciously.'" Lenhoff v. Birch Bay Real Estate, Inc., 22 Wn. App. 70, 74-75, 587 P.2d 1087 (1978) (quoting State ex rel. Carroll v. Junker, 79 Wn.2d 12, 26, 482 P.2d 775 (1971)). The probate provisions accommodate the application of estoppel and other equitable principles. RCW 11.40.070(4).
The probate court's overriding duty is to determine and carry out the wishes of the decedent, not the disputing parties. In re Estate of Stein, 78 Wn. App. 251, 259, 896 P.2d 740 (1995). The probate court should go to the utmost possible lengths to ensure that the wishes of the deceased are not defeated by the carelessness or indifference of those charged with carrying them out. In re Estate of Elliott, 22 Wn.2d 334, 351, 156 P.2d 427 (1945). For this reason, we accord great deference to the probate court in the exercise of its discretion on behalf of a decedent. Stein, 78 Wn. App. at 259-60; In re Estate of St. Martin, 175 Wn. 285, 289, 27 P.2d 326 (1933); cf. City of Benton City v. Adrian, 50 Wn. App. 330, 338, 748 P.2d 679 (1988) (equitable power of injunction).
The court is charged with direct responsibility for the proper administration of every estate. It is not "merely a referee in a contest between private disputants. Instead, it is the agency primarily charged with the important function of administering decedents' estates." In re Estate of Peterson, 12 Wn.2d 686, 722, 123 P.2d 733 (1942). "As a result of this peculiar status of the courts in probate proceedings, if it becomes apparent during the course of administration that a mistake has been made at some earlier stage, the court should immediately take steps to remedy the situation in so far as that is possible." Id. at 722-23.
Here, the court determined that Eva's estate would be wiped out by the accumulation of interest resulting from 20 years of doing nothing on this claim. The court was within its discretion in acting for the decedent without regard to which of the disputants was the more careless and indifferent or whether the lien statute of limitations applied. The judge resolved this dispute so as to give effect to the will.
Laches
Moreover, we cannot say that the court's application of the equitable doctrine of laches was an abuse of discretion on these facts. Laches is an equitable defense based on estoppel. It requires (1) knowledge of facts constituting a cause of action, (2) unreasonable delay in commencing the action, and (3) damages to the other party caused by the delay. In re Marriage of Dicus, 110 Wn. App. 347, 357, 40 P.3d 1185 (2002).
Maynard's estate urges that "commencing a cause of action" should be narrowly defined as filing papers within deadlines. But asserting a legal right is broader than this. In Dicus, for example, the plaintiff asserted an offset and then remained silent for 13 years. He offered no facts justifying such an unusually long delay. The trial court held that the circumstances supported a laches defense. "Even disregarding any statute of limitations bar, unusual circumstances can make a delay unreasonable for purposes of laches analysis." Id.
Laches generally does not apply if both sides are equally at fault. Rutter v. Rutter, 59 Wn.2d 781, 785, 370 P.2d 862 (1962). It is nonetheless an equitable doctrine calculated to do equity. We affirm the court's use of the doctrine of laches in the exercise of its broad probate discretion here.
A majority of the panel has determined that this opinion will not be printed in the Washington Appellate Reports but it will be filed for public record pursuant to RCW 2.06.040.
SCHULTHEIS and BROWN, JJ., Concur.