Opinion
2024-SC-0026-DG
12-19-2024
GREG COMBS, INDIVIDUALLY AND IN HIS CAPACITY AS EXECUTOR OF THE ESTATE OF SHARON ANN COMBS, DECEASED, JOEY COMBS; AND SANDRA COMBS TAYLOR APPELLANTS v. TRACY NAPIER; AND FAIRLEY DEWAYNE NAPIER APPELLEES
COUNSEL FOR APPELLANTS: Ross Edward Murray Murray Law Office PLLC COUNSEL FOR APPELLEES: Darrell A. Herald
ON REVIEW FROM COURT OF APPEALS NO. 2023-CA-0139 JACKSON CIRCUIT COURT NO. 21-CI-00073
COUNSEL FOR APPELLANTS:
Ross Edward Murray
Murray Law Office PLLC
COUNSEL FOR APPELLEES:
Darrell A. Herald
OPINION
VANMETER, CHIEF JUSTICE By case law, courts presume that a decedent who executes a will does not intend to die intestate. The issue we resolve in this case is whether the Court of Appeals erred in failing to recognize this presumption by opining that Mrs. Sharon Ann Combs died intestate notwithstanding, or in spite of, the joint will she had executed along with her predeceased husband, Buford Combs. Because the lower court failed to indulge this presumption, we reverse the Court of Appeals and reinstate the Jackson Circuit Court's judgment.
I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
In 2013, Buford and Sharon executed a document titled "Joint Will and Contract to Make a Will." Buford and Sharon had each been married before, with children from those prior marriages. Buford's children are Greg Combs, Sandra Combs Taylor and Joey Combs. Sharon's children are Tracey Napier and Fairley Dewayne Napier.
We will sometimes refer to the Combs children collectively as the "Combs siblings," and the Napier children as the "Napier brothers."
The Joint Will, in its entirety, provided:
JOINT WILL AND CONTRACT TO MAKE A WILL
We, Sharon Ann Combs and Buford Combs, being over 18 years of age, being of sound mind and disposing memory, and realizing the natural objects of our bounty, do hereby make, publish, and declare this instrument of writing to be our Joint Will, hereby revoking any and all will by us heretofore made and agreeing that this is a contract to make a will.
Item 1
We direct and nominate Greg Combs as Executor and he shall pay all our just debts and funeral expenses forthwith.
Item II
We, Sharon Ann Combs and Buford Combs, in the event we die in a common disaster or so close in time as to make separate estates impractical, bequeath and/or devise, to the following named children, all monies, personal belongings, personal effects, life insurance, or any other personalty that we may own at the time of our respective deaths to our children to be divided by them.
We devise our home in fee simple and with absolute ownership in them and with directions to sell and divide the proceeds equally between Greg Combs, Sandra Combs Taylor, Joey Combs, Tracey Lee Napier, and Fairley Dwayne Napier.
The Joint Will was subscribed by each Buford and Sharon, and their witnesses and made self-proving pursuant to KRS 394.225.
Kentucky Revised Statutes.
Buford died in October 2020. Following his death, Sharon and Greg Combs consulted with counsel, Juliana Coffey, about probating the will. As found by the circuit court, all of the couple's real estate and most of their cash assets were held jointly with right of survivorship, with the result that Buford only had a few assets worth less than the $30,000 exemption provided by KRS 391.030. Furthermore, counsel interpreted the Joint Will not to go into effect until after the death of the survivor. Consequently, a Petition to Dispense with Administration was filed and approved.
Sharon then died on January 5, 2021. Initially, her sons were appointed as Co-Administrators, as if she had died intestate. Since Greg was unable to find the original of the Joint Will, he filed a motion and petition to probate the Joint Will as a lost will. Following a hearing at which attorney Coffey and attorney Phyllis Robinson, the will's scrivener, testified, the Jackson District Court set aside the appointment of the Napier brothers, admitted the Joint Will to probate as a lost will and appointed Greg as executor. Attorneys Coffey and Robinson testified before the Jackson District Court that the couple's intent was that their estate go equally to their five children following both their deaths.
The Napier brothers then filed a declaratory judgment action as to the proper interpretation of the Joint Will. They alleged the dispositive provisions in Item II only took effect if Sharon and Buford died in a common disaster or so close in time as to make separate estates impractical. Because those events had not occurred, the Joint Will provisions as set out in Item II could not take effect and Sharon had therefore died intestate. This argument would be the Napier brothers inheriting all the couple's property, both real and personal, as her biological children and heirs at law. KRS 391.010(1), 391.030(1).
The Combs siblings, by contrast, argued that the clear intent of the couple was to divide the estate following the death of both among the five children equally. Alternatively, the Combs siblings asked the court to reform the Joint Will to strike the clause "in the event we die in a common disaster or so close in time as to make separate estates impractical" as nonsensical because separate estates are never impractical.
Initially, the Napier brothers filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings which the trial court denied. The Combs siblings then filed a motion for summary judgment based on the will's language, the circumstances of the decedents at their respective deaths and the testimony of attorneys Robinson and Coffey as to Sharon's intent. The Napier brothers opposed the motion arguing summary judgment was inappropriate and that administration of separate estates for Buford and Sharon was not impracticable. Additionally, they argued that, based on the difference in ages between Buford and Sharon, approximately 14 years, the couple would have expected that Sharon would outlive Buford for a number of years such that she could be expected to consume most of the joint assets and little would be left over.
The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of the Combs siblings, entering Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law. It held the two paragraphs of Item II were meant to be read together, with the distribution portion of the realty paragraph to be applied to the personalty paragraph and the qualifying phrase of the personalty to be applied to the realty. As to the qualifying phrase, the trial court concluded that the paragraph was inconclusive and nonsensical, and looked to extrinsic evidence to clarify Sharon's intention, specifically the attorneys' testimony that Sharon intended to treat all five children equally.
On the Napier brothers' appeal, the Court of Appeals reversed the trial court, opining that because the will was unambiguous, extrinsic evidence was inadmissible to explain the testatrix's intent. Napier v. Combs, No. 2023-CA-0139-MR, 2023 WL 7248580 at *3 (Ky. App. Nov. 3, 2023). Because Buford and Sharon had not died in a common disaster or so close in time as to make separate estates impractical, the Court of Appeals held Item II did not come into effect and Sharon, as a result, died intestate. Id. The Combs siblings moved for discretionary review, which we granted.
II. STANDARD OF REVIEW
A testatrix's intent controls the interpretation of her will. Clarke v. Kirk, 795 S.W.2d 936, 938 (Ky. 1990). To ascertain the testatrix's intention, we first "examine the language of the instrument. If the language used is a reasonably clear expression of intent, then the inquiry need go no further." Id. (citing Gatewood v. Pickett, 234 S.W.2d 489 (Ky. 1950)). While canons of construction are available when that intent is unclear, a court need not resort to canons of construction when a testatrix uses clear and unambiguous language. Hammons v. Hammons, 327 S.W.3d 444, 448 (Ky. 2010). In addition, "[t]he construction as well as the meaning and legal effect of a written instrument . . . is a matter of law for the court." Morganfield Nat'l Bank v. Damien Elder &Sons, 836 S.W.2d 893, 895 (Ky. 1992) (citing Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States v. Wells, 101 F.2d 608 (6th Cir. 1939)); see also Cumberland Valley Contractors, Inc. v. Bell Cnty. Coal Corp., 238 S.W.3d 644, 647 (Ky. 2007) (stating "the interpretation and legal effect of a contract is a matter of law[]"). Therefore, our review is de novo. Cumberland Valley Contractors, 238 S.W.3d at 647.
III. ANALYSIS
The interpretation of Sharon's will hinges on the meaning of the introductory clause of Item II, "in the event we die in a common disaster or so close in time as to make separate estates impractical[.]" Three rules of construction play a role in our analysis. First, our case law has long recognized a presumption against intestacy. See Sigmon v. Moore's Adm'r, 297 Ky. 525, 527, 180 S.W.2d 420, 422 (1944) (stating "the presumption will be indulged that a testator did not intend to die intestate as to any of his property, and if a will is susceptible of two interpretations, one disposing of property and the other not, that construction disposing of all property will be favored[]"). Second, a will is to be construed according to the ordinary meaning of the words used, although words having a technical, legal meaning are generally construed accordingly to that legal meaning. Shedd's Adm'r v. Gayle, 288 Ky. 466, 469, 156 S.W.2d 490, 492 (1941). Third, extrinsic evidence is admissible to explain the circumstances of the testatrix in furtherance of the language used. Eichhorn v. Morat, 175 Ky. 80, 85, 193 S.W. 1013 (1917). This latter rule is further expounded in Blessing v. Johnston, in which our predecessor court stated.
In ascertaining [the testator's] intention, the first consideration is the specific language employed by the testator in expressing his desires and in determining what he meant by the employment of the particular word or phrase or clause involved. Courts not only have the right, but it is their duty, to look to and consider the surrounding circumstances of the testator; the amount of his property; the purpose he intended to accomplish by his devise; the cordial or other relationship existing between him and the devisee; the extent of his education and familiarity with the technical or other terms that he employed, and to other considerations having a tendency to throw light upon his sought after intention.249 Ky. 777, 780, 61 S.W.2d 635, 636 (1933).
As we read the Court of Appeals' analysis, the court seems to have taken issue with the trial court's reliance on attorneys Robinson's and Coffey's testimony as to Sharon's intent. We agree that parol proof of a testatrix's intentions is of questionable admissibility. See Huffman v. Payne, 300 S.W.2d 785, 787 (Ky. 1957) (stating that because the testator's lips are sealed, "the courts must be very careful not to make a redistribution of his property on the basis of parol proof that he had a different intention from that expressed, or because it would be more beneficial to one of the objects of his bounty if a different disposition was made[]"); Martin v. Palmer, 193 Ky. 25, 28, 234 S.W. 742, 743 (1921) (stating that "[i]f verbal declarations of a testator were admissible in interpreting a will, it can be readily seen that the proof of such declarations might result in an entire change of the intentions of the testator as expressed in the will[]"). However, proof of the testatrix's situation is permissibly introduced to understand her intention from the language which she in fact used. 2 JAMES R. MERRITT, PROBATE PRACTICE & PROCEDURE § 1107 (2d ed. 1984). For example, analysis of Buford's and Sharon's Joint Will needs proof that they, in fact, did not die as a result of a common disaster. Furthermore, the Napier brothers in support of their interpretation of the will have proffered proof of the age difference between Buford and Sharon.
In applying these rules to construe the meaning of the introductory clause of Item II, all parties agree that Buford and Sharon did not die in a common disaster. But did they die so close in time as to make separate estates impractical? The word "impractical" is an adjective and pertains to an action that is "not practical, not useful, not sensible or realistic." WEBSTER'S NEW WORLD DICTIONARY (4th ed. 2001). Black's Law Dictionary gives the word's antonym, "practical", the relevant definition of "[u]seful or suitable for a particular purpose or situation," making an impractical act not useful or not suitable for a situation. Practical, BLACK'S LAW DICTIONARY (12th ed. 2024). "Impractical," however, contrasts with the word, "impracticable," which means "not capable of being carried out." Id.; see also Bryan A. Gardner, A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage 678 (2d ed. 1995) (recognizing distinction between "practical" meaning "capable of being put to good use," and "practicable" meaning "capable of being accomplished; feasible; possible").
Buford's and Sharon's financial situation was that they held most of their assets jointly with right of survivorship. On Buford's death, those assets therefore passed by operation of law to Sharon without the necessity of probate. His individually owned assets were of sufficiently small value that following Sharon's application for the personal property exemption provided by KRS 391.030, administration of his estate was dispensed with. KRS 395.455. While Sharon and her counsel, Ms. Coffey, could have proceeded to open Buford's estate for administration, the facts of this matter conclusively demonstrate that doing so would not have been useful, or, in other words, it was impractical. Because Buford and Sharon died "so close in time as to make separate estates impractical," the clear provisions of Item II of the Joint Will manifest Sharon's intention that the Napier brothers and the Combs siblings were to share equally in Sharon's estate. The Court of Appeals erred in concluding otherwise.
IV. CONCLUSION
We reverse the Court of Appeals opinion and reinstate the Jackson Circuit Court's summary judgment.
All sitting. All concur.