Frost Nat’l Bank v. Fernandez, 315 S.W.3d 494 (Tex. 2010).
Alleged Heir brought suit to be declared an heir of the testator who
had died over 40 years earlier with a will leaving his entire estate to
his wife and whose estate was closed in 1952. She hoped that by setting
aside a 1949 judgment determining that none of the testator’s estate
passed by intestacy, she could claim an intestate share of this
property. Alleged Heir claimed that she did not bring the action in a
timely manner, that is, within the four year residual limitations period
provided in Civil Practice & Remedies Code § 16.051, because she was
unaware of her possible status as an heir until recently.
The Texas Supreme Court held that the discovery rule does not apply to
inheritance or heirship claims by non-marital children or to bill of
review claims to set aside previous probate judgments. This holding is
consistent with the court’s prior decision in Little v. Smith, 643
S.W.2d 414 (Tex. 1997), which rejected the discovery rule for heirship
claims by adoptees. As in Little, the court determined that the strong
public interest in according finality to probate proceedings prevailed
over the possible claim of the potential heir.
Moral: The discovery rule is not applicable to heirship claims by
non-marital children as well as adoptees. Accordingly, a person with
questionable parentage who is interested in making inheritance claims
must determine the identity of his or her parents in a timely manner and
then monitor the parent so that he or she may bring a timely claim after
the parent dies.
Alleged Heir brought suit in both district court and statutory
probate court in her attempt to be declared an heir of the testator who
had died over 40 years earlier and whose estate was closed in 1952. She
hoped that by setting aside a 1949 judgment determining that none of the
testator’s estate passed by intestacy, she could claim an intestate
share of this property. The district court granted summary judgment
against Alleged Heir. On appeal, the intermediate appellate court held
that the district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction and must
abate its proceedings until the probate court resolved the heirship
issue.
The Texas Supreme Court reversed. The court held that Alleged Heir’s
direct attack on a previous judgment vested the district court with
subject matter jurisdiction. The district court was entitled to take as
true her heirship allegation which then would be sufficient to give her
standing. The court explained that standing existed even though the
alleged relationship may not be true and was subject to rebuttal on the
merits.
The court also held that Probate Code § 48(a) does not authorize a
probate court to exercise jurisdiction over heirship claims when an
estate has been closed for decades and the decedent died testate.
Moral: If a contested probate matter is transferred to a district court
by a county court judge in a county without a statutory court exercising
probate jurisdiction or a statutory probate court, the district court
has jurisdiction over a bill of review involving any decision
subsequently rendered by the district court.