Filed 12/22/05 Estate of Register CA2/1

 

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS

 

 

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

 

SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

 

DIVISION ONE

 

 

Estate of BERNARD REGISTER, Deceased.	B177822   (Los Angeles County
HAROLD D. REGISTER, JR.,   Petitioner and Appellant,   v.   ELIZABETH PRUDHOMME,   Objector and Respondent.	Super. Ct. No. BP081955)

 

 

 

 

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, Barbara A. Meiers, Judge. Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded with directions.

Dongell Lawrence Finney, John A. Lawrence, Shaune B. Arnold and Michael Oberbeck for Petitioner and Appellant.

Raphael A. Rosemblat for Objector and Respondent.

 

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Bernard Register died in 2003, leaving a holographic will in which his nephew (Harold Register, Jr.) was named as executor. When Harold submitted the will for probate, a woman (Elizabeth Prudhomme) appeared and filed a will contest, claiming she had married Bernard in 1971. At trial, Elizabeth described a Tijuana ceremony but was unable to produce a wedding certificate or any meaningful corroboration for her claim. For his part, Harold established without contradiction that, in 1973, Elizabeth had successfully claimed she was the unmarried surviving spouse of a man who had died in 1970 (Norman Reilly Raine) and thereby obtained a share of Raine's estate to which she would not have been entitled had she been married to Harold (or anyone else) in 1973. The trial court rejected the nephew's claim of judicial estoppel and found among other things that Elizabeth was Bernard's surviving spouse. We conclude otherwise.

 

FACTS

A.

Bernard Register died on September 5, 2003. During his lifetime, he had been both an investigator employed by various Los Angeles County agencies and a real estate broker. At the time of his death, he owned several parcels of real property.

 

On October 9, Harold Register (Bernard's nephew) filed a petition to probate a holographic will signed by Bernard on December 20, 2000, and for appointment as executor (he was nominated as executor in the will). In November, Elizabeth Prudhomme filed pleadings in which she contested Bernard's holographic will, claimed she was Bernard's surviving spouse, and sought appointment as administrator of Bernard's estate.[1] On about January 26, 2004, Jeffrey Siegal was appointed as temporary special administrator of Bernard's estate.

 

B.

The issues were tried in May 2004, at which time the parties' experts agreed that the dispositive provisions and signature of the holographic will were in Bernard's handwriting, leaving a dispute about (1) Elizabeth's standing (that is, whether she was Bernard's surviving spouse), (2) Elizabeth's claim of undue influence, and (3) the identity of the person administering the estate.

 

1.

According to Elizabeth, she and Bernard fell in love in 1969. She moved into his residence (a duplex on Curson Avenue) and cared for his mother and brother (Pearl and Charles) who lived in the upstairs unit. Elizabeth and Bernard visited Tijuana, Mexico, on October 15, 1971, where he â€