Objections To Estate Accounting Denied Due To Laches, An Undue Delay In Seeking Relief
In the estate administration and estate litigation case of Estate of Davis v. Treadway, PICS Case No. 15-4444 (Pa. Super. Sept. 11, 2015), the Honorable Victor P. Stabile, writing on behalf of the Pennsylvania Superior Court, ruled that the orphans’ court did not err in granting respondent’s motion for summary, judgment based on laches where respondent’s pleadings alleged facts sufficient to establish laches as a defense to the objections to an account of decedent’s estate. Estate Accounting.
When decedent died in 1990, she left a will appointing her son, E. Morris Davis, IV, and her son-in-law, James C. Treadway, as co-executors of her estate. In 2011, decedent’s three daughters and son-in-law James, appellants in this matter, petitioned to compel the filing of an account. The orphans’ court ordered Morris to file an account of his administration of decedent’s estate.
In late 2011, Morris filed an account of the estate. Thereafter, appellants filed objections to the account. They listed approximately 37 items of tangible personal property that were not listed in the limited account Morris filed but which appellants asserted belonged to decedent at the time of her death and should have been accounted for as part of the estate.
Morris filed a motion for summary judgment, which he described as a motion for return of property no longer in dispute and/or for which there was no substantial dispute. While the court issued a rule, no party appeared to show cause why the motion should not be granted or filed a response to the motion. Thus, the orphans’ court granted Morris’s summary judgment motion.
In this appeal, appellants argued that the orphans’ court erred in applying the affirmative defense of laches sua sponte. They maintained that Morris failed to raise laches in his response to the petition for accounting. The Superior Court noted that the doctrine of laches is an equitable bar to the prosecution of stale claims.
In order to prevail on an assertion of laches, respondents must establish a delay arising from petitioner’s failure to exercise due diligence and prejudice to respondents resulting from the delay. The appellate court reviewed the delay. The appellate court reviewed the record and found that the orphans’ court did not raise the laches defense sua sponte. Rather, Morris raised the defense in his pleadings.
Specifically, Morris asserted in his pro se response to the petition for an accounting that one of his sisters “had entered the property numerous times previously, and had never made a mention, reference, comment or made any other sign of a contest of ownership of the chattels, despite Morris’s continued and exclusive ownership and customary acts of ownership during such visits.”
While Morris did not use the term “laches,” he alleged facts to establish laches as a defense to the objections. “There is no need to name an affirmative defense if facts sufficient to constitute the defense are plead.” As such, the appellate court construed Morris’s pleadings to include laches and reasoned that it could not conclude that the orphans’ court raised laches sua sponte.
Moreover, the orphans’ court did not err in findings that Morris suffered prejudice due to appellants’ delay in bringing this action. As such, the court found that the orphans’ court did not err in granting Morris’s motion for summary judgment based on laches.
Reference: Digest of Recent Opinions, Pennsylvania Law Weekly, 38 PLW 933 (October 6, 2015)
Filed Under: Estate Administration; Estate Litigation: Accounting; Laches Defense
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