The Third Circuit Court of Appeals rules that in a challenge to the distribution of the assets from a will probated in Pennsylvania, claims for tortious interference with inheritance and slander fall outside the probate exception to federal diversity jurisdiction and may be heard by a federal district court. Golden v. Golden (3rd Cir., No. 03-2184, Sept. 3, 2004).
Irene I. King executed a will and a trust, to which all her property was transferred. David Golden, Ms. King's brother, was named successor trustee. Upon Ms. King's death, the trust corpus was to be distributed in equal one-third shares among Leah Golden, Ms. King's sister-in-law, Helen Earwood, Ms. King's sister, and Mr. Golden. Mr. Golden began exercising increasing control over both Ms. King's finances and, allegedly, over Ms. King herself. Ms. King later altered the distributive scheme of her trust, reducing the legacy to Ms. Golden and Ms. Earwood and increasing the legacy to Mr. Golden.
Following her death, Ms. King's will was probated and letters testamentary issued. Robert Golden, attorney-in-fact for Leah Golden, and Donald Earwood, executor of the estate of Helen Earwood, brought an action in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania alleging jurisdiction based on diversity of citizenship. (David Golden is a citizen of Pennsylvania, Robert Golden a citizen of New York, and Ms. Earwood was a citizen of Georgia.) The appellants asserted several grounds for relief, including fraud, slander, undue influence, forgery, breach of fiduciary duty as an executor, and tortious interference with inheritance. The District Court dismissed the action as falling within the probate exception to federal diversity jurisdiction.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reverses in part. The court holds that the claims for undue influence, forgery and breach of fiduciary duty would interfere with the already-completed probate proceedings and, therefore, are subject to the probate exception. However, the court rules that the claims for slander and tortious interference with inheritance are in personam diversity actions involving parties to a will and would have no effect on the past probate of the will. Therefore, the district court has jurisdiction to consider them. Explaining its ruling regarding tortious interference, the court writes that "[t]he theory of the tort is that the will actually probated was valid and enforceable because it reflected testamentary intent at the time it was made, but that the alleged tortfeasor wrongly induced the testator to maintain that will." [emphasis in original]
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