ESTATE of Ada Y. GREENBLATT.
Docket No. Lin-13-115.
Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.
Feb. 25, 2014.
2014 ME 32
Argued: Nov. 19, 2013.
[¶36] Contrary to Kennebec County‘s arguments, this does not necessarily mean that employers covered by section 18252 have no obligation to inform employees about their eligibility to participate in MPERS. The County concedes that section 18252, by implication, imposes some duty to provide information about the availability of membership in MPERS. Because the Board‘s interpretation of this provision of the State Retirement System statute is reasonable, we must defer to it.
C. The Board‘s Factual Findings
[¶37] This Court will affirm the Board‘s factual findings if they are supported by substantial evidence in the record, even if the record contains inconsistent or contrary evidence. Friends of Lincoln Lakes v. Bd. of Envtl. Prot., 2010 ME 18, ¶ 13, 989 A.2d 1128.
[¶38] Kennebec County contends that the Board erred in finding that the three employees were not informed of their eligibility to participate in MPERS when they were hired.16 However, each of the employees testified that the County had not offered them enrollment in MPERS when they were hired, and that the benefits were never explained to them. This evidence, despite being contradicted by other evidence in the record, is sufficient to support the Board‘s findings.
D. Whether the Board‘s Interpretation Retroactively Imposes a New Rule
[¶39] Administrative clarification of a PLD‘s existing rights and obligations is permissible; it is not retroactive in effect. Me. Sch. Admin. Dist. 27, 2009 ME 108, ¶ 28, 983 A.2d 391. Interpreting a statute‘s plain meaning does not constitute pronouncing a new rule. See id. ¶ 25. Section 18252 requires that employees be given a meaningful choice whether to elect to join MPERS. That the Superior Court observed that “an employer subject to section 18252 fails to document at its peril” does not indicate that the Board has announced a new rule requiring employers to keep detailed records of election procedures. Rather, it is a commonsense observation that, absent such documentation, it may be difficult for an employer to prove that it has complied with the modest notice requirements of section 18252. The County‘s argument that the Board has impermissibly announced a new rule that is not promulgated by statute or regulation is unpersuasive.
[¶40] For these reasons, I would affirm the judgment of the Superior Court on the merits.
Noreen A. Patient, Esq. (orally), Eaton Peabody, Brunswick, for appellees Owen Greenblatt and Stephen Singer.
Panel: SAUFLEY, C.J., and ALEXANDER, LEVY, SILVER, MEAD, GORMAN, and JABAR, JJ.
JABAR, J.
[¶1] Mark Levine, a beneficiary of the Estate of Ada Greenblatt, appeals from a judgment entered in the Lincoln County Probate Court (Berry, J.) completing settlement of the estate and ordering him to pay attorney fees and costs of part of the proceedings pursuant to
I. BACKGROUND
[¶2] The evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to the court‘s judgment, supports the following findings of the Probate Court. See In re Estate of Hunt, 2010 ME 23, ¶ 2, 990 A.2d 544.
[¶3] Ada Greenblatt died testate and without issue on December 19, 2008. Ada‘s will provides for two $10,000 bequests to charitable organizations and specific bequests of $1,000 each to fourteen of her nieces and nephews. Ada‘s will further provides that the remainder of her estate was to be distributed to her brothers, sisters, and sister-in-law in equal shares, or if they are deceased, to their families, per stirpes. Ada‘s will provides no further instructions on how to distribute her residuary estate.
[¶4] Ada‘s residuary estate consists primarily of real property and personal property. Many of the personal property items do not have significant monetary value but have sentimental value to members of the family. Ada designated two personal representatives in her will: Owen Greenblatt, her brother, and Stephen Singer,1 her nephew. The personal representatives opted to distribute the items of personal property that had sentimental value in kind. To distribute these items, the personal representatives provided the beneficiaries with a list of each item including the item‘s appraised value. From this list, the beneficiaries could then select the items that they wanted in the order of their preference.
[¶5] Before sending the list to the beneficiaries, Ada‘s only surviving siblings, Owen and Riva Greenblatt, were given the opportunity to select items that they wanted. The personal representatives did not inform the other residuary beneficiaries that Owen and Riva would have the opportunity to select items before the remaining beneficiaries. Owen and Riva selected a few items from the list, some of which were then marked as “unavailable” on the list, and the personal representatives sent the list of items to the remaining beneficiaries.
[¶6] This dispute centers on the distribution of a single item of personal property in Ada‘s residuary estate, a mizrah (an ornamental religious print) valued at $100. Owen selected the mizrah, but it was not
[¶7] After Levine sent the letter objecting to the distribution of personal property, he did not participate in any further actions related to the distribution of the estate‘s property. Specifically, in order to distribute the estate‘s real property interests, the personal representatives asked each residuary beneficiary to sign a waiver of notice and limited power of attorney so that they could sell the property.3 Levine declined to sign the documents and refused to respond to further requests to participate in a sale. Accordingly, the personal representatives filed a petition to partition the proceeds from the sale of the home. See
[¶8] After the sale of the real property and court-ordered partition of the proceeds, the personal representatives petitioned the Probate Court for an order completing settlement of the estate. See
[¶9] The court entered a judgment completing settlement of the estate after making “minor adjustments” to the personal representatives’ accounting of the estate‘s expenses. With respect to Levine‘s allegations of a breach of fiduciary duty, the court found that although the distribution of personal property was “not perfect,” it was “not improper.”
[¶10] Further, the court granted the Estate‘s request for costs and attorney fees with respect to the partition action, finding that Levine‘s failure to cooperate in the sale of the estate‘s real property resulted in the “needless ... filing [of] the expensive partition action that only accomplished what would have been achieved if [Levine] ... had simply signed and returned the waivers and powers [o]f attorney.” See Estate of McCormick, 2001 ME 24, ¶ 25 n.10, 765 A.2d 552 (discussing sanctions for the filing of a “frivolous or malicious claim or objection“);
[¶11] Levine argues that although the court found that the distribution scheme was “not improper,” it erred in failing to conclude that Owen breached his fiduciary duty as a personal representative in distributing the mizrah to himself.
[¶12] “When an order of the Probate Court is appealed, we defer to the Probate Court on factual findings unless they are clearly erroneous, but we review de novo the application of the law to the facts.” Estate of Horne, 2003 ME 73, ¶ 17, 822 A.2d 1177. Personal representatives of an estate are fiduciaries, and pursuant to
[¶13] Although Levine argues that Owen breached the duty of loyalty, he does not allege that Owen took any action that was not “solely in the interests of the beneficiaries.” See
[¶14] The duty of impartiality generally applies if there are two or more beneficiaries with interests in an estate, and it requires a personal representative to “act impartially in ... managing and distributing the [estate] property, giving due regard to the beneficiaries’ respective interests.” Id. In other words, the personal representative “represents all the beneficiaries under the will and, in so doing, must adopt a neutral position respecting their conflicting claims.” Desmond v. Persina, 381 A.2d 633, 638 (Me. 1978). Further, the duty of impartiality includes a restriction that “the executor may not take sides in the adjudication of the individual claims of beneficiaries one against another.” In re Estate of Morine, 363 A.2d 700, 704 (Me. 1976).
[¶15] However, with respect to the scope of a duty of impartiality:
It would be overly simplistic, and therefore misleading, to equate impartiality with some concept of “equality” of treatment or concern—that is, to assume that the interests of all beneficiaries have the same priority and are entitled to the same weight in the trustee‘s balancing of those interests.
Restatement (Third) of Trusts § 79 cmt. b (2007). Similarly, the comment to section 803 of the Uniform Trust Code, on which the Legislature based
[¶16] It is undisputed that the personal representatives in this case had the discretion to determine how to distribute the residuary assets. See
[¶17] Here, in distributing the residuary assets, the personal representatives created a thirteen-page list of personal property items that they determined had sentimental value to the residuary beneficiaries. The personal representatives complied with section 3-906(a)(4), which permits them to distribute property in kind to the beneficiaries, in a non pro rata share, if the items are “valued as of the date on which they are distributed.”
[¶18] Then, the personal representatives gave Ada‘s only surviving siblings, Owen and Riva, the opportunity to select items before distributing the list of items to the remaining residuary beneficiaries. The items to be distributed in kind were primarily items that originally belonged to Owen and Ada‘s parents—Levine‘s grandparents. Owen testified that the personal representatives determined that each of the residuary beneficiaries “should have a chance to retain some memento from Ada, and by extension [Owen and Ada‘s] parents.”
[¶19] It was reasonable and consistent with the best interests of the beneficiaries for the personal representatives to determine that the surviving family members in the nearest degree of kinship to Ada‘s parents, who had grown up in the home with those items, should have the opportunity to select among the items before giving the same opportunity to the remaining residuary beneficiaries. See id.; Restatement (Third) of Trusts § 79 cmt. b. Further, the evidence in the record indicates that when the personal representatives created the plan, and when Owen selected the mizrah, he was unaware that any other beneficiary wanted the item. Thus, the evidence supports the court‘s implicit finding that Owen was not motivated by a personal bias. See Restatement (Third) of Trusts § 79 cmt. b.
[¶20] The mizrah was valued at $100, and Owen offset his remaining residuary interest in the estate by that amount. Thus, the in-kind distributions did not alter the proportionate shares of the estate that each residuary beneficiary ultimately received. Because this distribution scheme and Owen‘s selection of the mizrah was not an abuse of the personal representatives’ discretion and, thus, did not violate the fiduciary duty of impartiality, we decline to disturb the Probate Court‘s deter-
The entry is:
Judgment affirmed and motion for sanctions denied.