In re Est. of Womack, 2017 UT 35

Decedent Gordon W. Womack died in 1989; his will devised oil, gas, and mineral rights "to each of my children, share and share alike, for life, remainder to the children of each of my children."
Estate was formally probated in 1989; district court entered an estate-closing order in 1990 and reopened the estate in 1991 to construe the mineral-rights provision.
June 3, 1991 order and a July 1992 amended closing order construed the will to give Decedent’s children life estates in mineral rights and grandchildren undivided remainder interests; the 1992 schedule of distribution reflected those allocations.
In 2014 Douglas Womack petitioned to reopen the estate and to construe the provision to expressly grant life-estate holders the right to receive rents, royalties, bonuses, and to exercise executive/leasing rights without liability for waste.
District court denied the 2014 petition as an untimely attempt to modify/vacate the final 1992 formal testacy order; the Court of Appeals affirmed that the petition was barred by the applicable time limit for modifying formal testacy orders.
The Utah Supreme Court granted certiorari to address whether the petition sought a barred modification of the prior estate-closing order; it affirmed the courts below that the petition was untimely but vacated the Court of Appeals’ merits ruling on life-estate vs. remainder-holder rights as improvidently reached.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument (Douglas)	Defendant's Argument (Grandchildren)	Held
Whether Douglas’s 2014 petition is barred as a modification/vacatur of a final formal testacy order	Petition is merely a construction of the probated will and exempt from time limits on modifying testacy orders	Petition seeks to change rights established by the 1991/1992 orders and thus is subject to the time-for-appeal limitation	Petition is an untimely attempt to modify a final estate order and is barred by Utah Code § 75-3-413
Whether the court of appeals properly decided the substantive rights of life-estate vs. remainder holders in mineral proceeds	Courts should construe the will to grant life-estate holders explicit rights to rents/royalties and leasing authority	Prior orders already fixed interests; any change is untimely	Supreme Court declined to decide on the merits and vacated the Court of Appeals’ substantive holding; that issue remains open for appropriate proceedings (e.g., interpleader)

Johnson v. Johnson, 330 P.3d 704 (Utah 2014) (standard of review for statute-of-limitations determinations on certiorari)
CIG Expl., Inc. v. State, 24 P.3d 966 (Utah 2001) (courts should not reach merits when a claim is time-barred)
Becton Dickinson & Co. v. Reese, 668 P.2d 1254 (Utah 1983) (statute-of-limitations bars procedural reach into merits)
First Sec. Bank of Utah, N.A. v. Maxwell, 659 P.2d 1078 (Utah 1983) (interpleader as a means for determining adverse claimants’ rights)