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In re Estate of Stein7/30/2001
The appellant has moved for reconsideration of the court's unpublished The unpublished opinion in this case was filed on February 15, 2001. Upon reconsideration, the court has decided to withdraw the opinion filed on February 15, 2001. It is, therefore,
ORDERED:
The unpublished opinion filed in this case on February 15, 2001, is hereby withdrawn. The court's new opinion is attached to this order.
DATED this 30th day of July, 2001.
UNPUBLISHED OPINION
Jack Stein appeals from an order approving the final distribution of his father's estate. He argues that his judgment creditor from a wrongful death suit was improperly substituted for him as a real party of interest in the administration of his father's estate after the creditor caused a sheriff's sale of part but not all of Stein's interest in Clark County real estate held by his father's estate. Because Stein raises this argument for the first time on appeal, we decline to address it and affirm.
I. FACTS
The protracted 12-year administration of Jack Stein's father's multi-million dollar estate (Stein Estate) began in 1987 when Nicholas Stein died. By July 1991, the Stein Estate was worth over $3.5 million, mostly in the form of two unliquidated parcels of real estate in Clark County, Washington (parcels 1 and 2). The administration was protracted in part by litigation between beneficiaries over the validity and effect of competing Washington and Oregon wills. See In re Estate of Stein, 78 Wn. App. 251, 253, 896 P.2d 740 (1995), review denied, 128 Wn.2d 1014 (1996). Jack Stein was a named beneficiary in both wills and a proponent of the Oregon will, which gave him virtually all of the Stein Estate. John and Tami Stein were the proponents of the Washington will, which gave them approximately two-thirds of the Stein Estate.
A. Writ of Execution
The murder of Thelma Lund first protracted the administration and then led to the settlement of the will contest. In 1991, a jury found Jack Stein liable for the wrongful death of Lund, who had been severely beaten and strangled, and awarded her estate $4,000,000. The trial court trebled the damages to $12,000,000. Winchester v. Stein, 135 Wn.2d 835, 840, 842, 959 P.2d 1077 (1998). In 1992 the Lund Estate took steps to execute upon its judgment in the wrongful death case. Marlene Winchester, the personal representative of the Lund Estate, obtained a writ of execution authorizing the county sheriff to levy upon and sell all of Jack Stein's non-exempt personal and real property in Clark County to satisfy the judgment and judgment interest. The sheriff levied upon and sold Jack Stein's 'undivided one-third interest (or whatever other interest the Court finds he has)' in parcel 1 of the Stein Estate's Clark County real estate to Winchester as personal representative of the Lund Estate. Clerk's Papers at 376. The sheriff's sale did not involve parcel 2. This was an apparent oversight and was never brought to the attention of the probate court.
By July 1992, with the exception of the contents of a safe deposit box valued at less than $2,000, the Stein Estate held as assets Clark County real estate and less than $1,000 in checking and money market accounts. The Stein Estate sold the Clark County real estate by the end of 1995.
B. Substitution of Lund Estate for Jack Stein
In September 1997, Tami and John Stein moved to substitute the Lund Estate for Jack Stein as the real party of interest in the will contest. They presented two bases for the substitution: one, Jack Stein lacked standing because he had fraudulently assigned to his wife, Bethany Norberg, a
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