ORPHANS’ COURT HAS THE AUTHORITY TO MODIFY INCAPACITATED PERSON’S WILL
Orphans’ court had authority to modify incapacitated person’s will to disinherit legatees, since reasonable person in testator’s place would have responded to spouse’s breaking of mutually reciprocal wills and elder abuse from his children.
Chris Navarra, Linda D’Augostine, Joanne Navarra, Richard Navarra, and Charlene Shelledy appealed from the orphans’ court’s order granting the petition filed by Chrystie Clarke, child and limited guardian of Sandra Navarra, to substitute the judgment of the orphans’ court and disinherit five residuary legatees to Navarra’s will. Navarra and her husband were married in 1983, each bringing children from previous marriages. In January 2007, Navarra’s husband suffered debilitating injuries in an automobile accident. Therefore, Navarra and her husband executed mutually reciprocal wills, which provided that 70 percent of the residuary estate would pass to appellants and 30 percent would pass to Navarra’s children.
After executing the wills, Navarra began suffering from dementia, and friction developed between appellants and Navara’s children, with appellants ordering the caregivers to keep Navarra and her husband separated and frequently canceling caregiver appointments for Navarra. Navarra’s children moved her to a nursing home on suspicion of abuse. Appellants changed the locks on marital home and denied Navarra’s children access to marital assets. Navarra’s husband then executed a revised will disinheriting Navarra and her children. Appellants cashed jointly-owned CDs and used the proceeds to purchase annuities for themselves and removed Navarra from jointly-owned accounts. Following Navarra’s death, and due to her dementia precluding her from amending her will, Clarke petitioned for the orphans’ court to substitute its judgment and disinherit appellants. Appellants opposed the petition.
Prior to a hearing, Shelledy died from a stroke. Shelledy’s personal representative was not substituted as a party. However, the orphan’s court ruled that It could disinherit legatees of incapacitated persons, and granted Clarke’s position, directing the distribution of Navarra’s entire residuary estate to her children. On appeal, appellants argued that the orphans’ court lacked statutory authority to amend Navarra’s will to disinherit them, or that if it did, Clarke failed to supply sufficient evidence.
The court first ruled that Shelledy’s death divested the orphans’ court of jurisdiction to decide Clarke’s petition as to her, and remanded for substitution of Shelledy’s personal representative, since courts lacked jurisdiction over deceased persons and rendered any order involving them void. However, the court ruled that Shelledy was not an indispensable party, and therefore her death did not divest the orphans’ court of jurisdiction over the remaining appellants.
Turning to the merits, the court ruled that the orphans’ court was authorized to substitute its judgment and amend Navarra’s will to disinherit appellants, rejecting appellant’s argument that the orphans’ court authority was limited exclusively to statutorily enumerated powers. The court held that the statute’s text indicated the legislature’s intent for the enumerated powers to be illustrative rather than exhaustive. The court further ruled that Clarke had submitted sufficient competent evidence to warrant granting her petition under the preponderance of the evidence standard, as required by the statute’s “good cause” language, since a reasonable person in Navarra’s position would have disinherited appellants after her husband disinherited her own children and after appellants seized and spent marital assets.
Reference: Digest of Recent Opinions, Pennsylvania Law Weekly, 41 PLW 388 (April 24, 2018), In Re: Petition of Navarra, PICS Case No. 18-0477 (Pa. Super, April 11, 2018)
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