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Beyer v. Morgan State University8/29/2001
The appellant, Janet Beyer, personal representative of the Estate of Betty Keat, challenges a judgment of the Circuit Court for Baltimore City vacating two orders of the Orphans' Court for Baltimore City. The appellees are Morgan State University ("MSU") and the Estate of Betty Keat ("Estate"). The appellant poses the following questions, which we have reworded, for review:
I. Did the circuit court lack subject matter jurisdiction in that the orphans' court's orders were not appealable final judgments?
II. Did the circuit court err in vacating the orphans' court's orders and granting summary judgment to MSU?
For the following reasons, we answer "No" to question I, "No" to question II with respect to the order of the orphans' court approving payment of an attorney's fee, and "Yes" to question II with respect to the order of the orphans' court approving payment of expenses. Accordingly, we shall affirm the judgment of the circuit court in part, reverse it in part, and remand the case to the circuit court for further proceedings.
FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS
On January 12, 1996, several members of the Baltimore City Police Department entered Betty Y. Keat's house, at 326 Taplow Road, in Baltimore City, and shot her. Ms. Keat was taken to the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Unit where she died later that day.
Ms. Keat ("the decedent") left a one-page last will and testament ("the Will"), dated January 25, 1982. The Will provided, inter alia:
1. House: to be sold. Proceeds to Morgan State University for repair of campus clocks.
2. Stocks, mutual funds, deferred compensation , pension. Converted to cash for litigation costs, if necessary, to enforce precedent provision. Any surplus to be donated towards fund to rectify heating plant of Soper library.
The Will included other specific bequests of personalty, among them a gift of books about India to the Soper Library. It purported to leave to the University of Pennsylvania and the Hunter College Scholarship Fund sums that might accrue from the sale of certain real estate in West Virginia. It did not contain a residuary clause, address the payment of debts, or name a personal representative.
The appellant was the decedent's sister and, upon the decedent's death, her sole heir at law. A few days after the decedent's death, the appellant contacted a lawyer, Anton J. S. Keating, Esquire, and retained him to investigate bringing a civil action against the police officers responsible for the shooting. Subsequently, also in January 1996, the appellant paid Keating a $2,500 retainer for that purpose. Soon afterward, Keating arranged for David Allen, Esquire, to handle the probate case on behalf of the Estate and, as Keating put it in a letter to Allen, to "ensure that [the appellant] is the personal representative thereto."
On February 7, 1996, the appellant paid Keating an additional $2,500 retainer. Soon thereafter, the Will was admitted to probate and the appellant was appointed personal representative of the Estate. The next month, a claim was filed against the Estate by the Maryland State Department of Health and Mental Hygiene for $34,921, for medical care rendered to the decedent at the Shock Trauma Unit.
On April 6, 1996, Allen wrote to Julie Goodwin, Esquire, General Counsel to MSU, informing MSU of the decedent's bequest to MSU. Allen's letter stated that he intended to investigate the circumstances of the decedent's death and that "funds from the state will be needed for that undertaking, and any legal matters that may grow out of it." On April 24, 1996, Cecilia M. Assam, a paralegal with the Office of th
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