Beyeler v. Beyeler
Filed 6/19/13 Beyeler v. Beyeler CA1/3
California
Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or
relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except
as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This
opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for
purposes of rule 8.1115.
IN
THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
FIRST
APPELLATE DISTRICT
DIVISION
THREE
FAYE
BEYELER,
Plaintiff and Appellant,
v.
SARAH
BEYELER et al.,
Defendants and Respondents.
A133609
(San Francisco
County
Super. Ct.
No. CGC-10-500594)
This
is an appeal from judgment in a lawsuit brought by appellant Faye Beyeler against
her three adult children, respondents Sarah, Jonathan and Rochelle Beyeler
(collectively, children or respondents).
were unjustly enriched by their receipt of a total of $750,000 in proceeds from
life insurance policies paid out upon the death of their father and Faye’s
former husband, Hans Beyeler. For
reasons discussed below, we affirm.
FACTUAL
AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
Hans
and Faye Beyeler were married for over 28 years, during which time they raised each
of the respondents. On June 23, 2005, after two of the
three respondents had reached the age of maturity, Hans filed a
Several
noteworthy events followed the filing of this petition for dissolution. First, Hans’s employer, Smiths Aerospace, was
acquired by General Electric (GE), which gave him the new position of Director
of Quality Control. The effective date
of the acquisition was May 7, 2007.
became eligible for certain GE benefits and, effective 31 days after the May 7, 2007 acquisition date, all
of his Smiths benefits terminated.
Hans’s new GE benefits included life insurance coverage under four
Metropolitan Life (MetLife) policies described as follows: (1) Basic Life insurance at 2.5 times
his pay (effective November 22, 2007); (2) Accidental Death or
Dismemberment (AD/D ) insurance at one time his pay (effective May 5,
2007); (3) A Plus Term Life insurance at two times his pay (effective
April 01, 2008); and (4) Personal Accident insurance at three times
his pay (effective November 22, 2007).
With respect to the Basic Life, Personal Accident and A Plus Term Life policies,
Hans named respondents as equal beneficiaries.
With respect to AD/D policy, Hans did not designate a beneficiary.
Just
over a year after Hans began work at GE, on July 7, 2008, he was killed in a car accident. At the time of Hans’s death, the divorce had
not been finalized. However, the family residence
had been sold and all community assets, including the proceeds from the sale of
the residence, had been divided. Over
Faye’s objection, the children received payouts from three of the MetLife
policies – to wit, the Basic Life, Personal Accident and A Plus Term Life
policies – in the following amounts:
(1) Jonathan, $247,211.09; (2) Sarah, $254,257.27; and
(3) Rochelle, $246,779.12. Faye, in
turn, received over $100,000 in proceeds on the AD/D policy after the children
voluntarily disclaimed interest in it, and received the right to a lifetime
monthly payment as a surviving spouse benefit from Hans’s Smiths pension
plan. She also received, among other
things, Hans’s final paycheck in an amount that included compensation for his
accrued sick and vacation days.
On
October 21, 2010,
Faye filed the operative complaint in
this lawsuit seeking to recover this money from her children based upon the
equitable theory of unjust enrichment and seeking a constructive trust.
divorce, Hans purchased one or more life insurance policies with community
assets that named her as beneficiary and that, after filing for divorce, he
improperly removed her as beneficiary and replaced her with respondents. According to the complaint, Faye’s removal as
beneficiary of these life insurance policies violated the terms of the standard
automatic temporary restraining orders entered in the dissolution proceedings
(ATROS), as well as the duties Hans owed her in those proceedings to act in
good faith and consistent with fair dealing, and to disclose material financial
information necessary to enable her to protect her rights to spousal support
and community assets.
Trial
was held from June 27 to June 29,
2011. Oral and documentary
evidence was presented. At the trial’s
conclusion, the trial court issued a judgment and statement of decision in
favor of respondents. In doing so, the
trial court specifically found the evidence insufficient to prove the existence
of any life insurance plan through Smiths purchased with community assets.
DISCUSSION
Faye
asks this court to reverse the judgment in favor of respondents and enter a new
judgment in her favor on the following grounds.
First, Faye contends she was deprived of her right to a fair trial by
the trial court’s erroneous exclusion on hearsay grounds of the
former divorce lawyer who has since died, regarding the existence of a life
insurance policy issued to Hans during the course of his employment at
Smiths. Second, Faye contends the record
fails to support the trial court’s finding that Hans’s compensation package
from Smiths did not include a life insurance policy of which she was named
beneficiary. Third, Faye contends the
trial court erred as a matter of law by failing to decide key controverted
legal issues relating to Hans’s alleged breach of fiduciary duties to Faye, including
his duty to disclose information relating to his new GE employment and benefits
that was reasonably required for the exercise of her rights in the dissolution
proceedings. We address each of these
issues in turn after setting forth the relevant standards of review.
On
appeal, we review issues of fact for substantial
evidence. (
testimony for abuse of discretion. (
Ins. Co. (2002) 28 Cal.4th 1059, 1078.)
And, of course, we independently review claims of legal error. (Pannu
v. Land Rover North America, Inc. (2011) 191 Cal.App.4th 1298, 1317.)
I. Did the trial court
err by excluding deposition testimony from Daniel Pinto relating to Hans’s
alleged community-property life insurance policy?
Faye
challenges the judgment on the ground that the trial court deprived her of a
fair trial by erroneously excluding key evidence relating to the existence of a
life insurance benefit that she claimed Hans received during the course of his
employment at Smiths. Specifically,
during trial, Faye’s attorney sought to admit evidence in the form of deposition
testimony from Daniel Pinto, Faye’s divorce attorney and recently-deceased
boyfriend, regarding statements allegedly made by Hans’s divorce attorney,
Steven Finston, indicating Hans removed her as beneficiary from one or more of
his life insurance policies.
name="_ftnref5" title="">[5] Respondents objected on hearsay grounds, and
the trial court sustained their objection.
The following well-established hearsay rules guide our review.
Where an objection is
raised, unless the parties stipulate otherwise, hearsay evidence is generally
inadmissible at trial subject to specific statutory exceptions. (Evid. Code, § 1200;
Cal.4th 1337, 1354.) However, even where
hearsay evidence is
erroneously admitted or excluded, such error requires reversal of the final
judgment only if the challenging party establishes that a miscarriage of
justice has resulted. (Cal. Const., art. VI, § 13;
Evid. Code, § 353.)
Here,
Faye contends Pinto’s statements regarding what Hans’s attorney, Finston, said
to a court commissioner during an off-the-record conference in chambers should
have been admitted pursuant to Evidence Code section 1224 as an authorized
vicarious admission made by Finston on behalf of Hans. Under Evidence Code section 1224,“[w]hen the liability,
obligation, or duty of a party to a civil action is based in whole or in part
upon the liability, obligation, or duty of the declarant, or when the claim or
right asserted by a party to a civil action is barred or diminished by a breach
of duty by the declarant, evidence of a statement made by the declarant is
admissible against the party as it would be if offered against the declarant in
an action involving that liability, obligation, duty, or breach of duty.†(Evid. Code, § 1224; see also
960 [quoting Wigmore for the proposition that “ ‘the admissions of a person
having virtually the same interests . . . and the motive and means
for obtaining knowledge will in general be likely to be equally worthy of
consideration’ as the admissions of the party himselfâ€].) Relying on this Code
provision, Faye argues: “Hans and the Respondents are bound by an admission
that Hans removed Faye as the beneficiary of his insurance. This admission
carries an insurmountable inference that Faye had to be on the insurance before
she could be removed.â€
The
trial court rejected Faye’s reliance on Evidence Code section 1224, finding
that Pinto’s testimony was inadmissible hearsay evidence lacking indicia of
trustworthiness. In doing so, the trial
court expressly declined to “accept Mr. Pinto’s memory of . . . [Mr. Finston’s]
representation of what he believed to be his client’s position,†given that his
representation was made in chambers out of the presence of the court reporter
and was never memorialized for the record or made into a formal order. The trial court reasoned that, “when [an
attorney] make[s] statements in chambers, they aren’t necessarily quotes from
your client, . . . they are the best representations of what you believe
in that moment that your client will want . . .†Further, the trial court noted, nothing
precluded Faye from calling Finston, the actual declarant, to the witness stand
to question him about his alleged statements regarding Hans’s insurance.
We
conclude the trial court’s ruling was within the proper scope of its
discretion. In so concluding, we agree
with the court that Faye’s reliance on Evidence Code section 1224 is
misplaced. As set forth above, this provision provides in
relevant part that “evidence of a statement made by the declarant is as admissible against
the party†when “[that party’s] liability, obligation, or duty
. . . is based in whole or in part upon the liability, obligation, or
duty of the declarant . . . .â€
(Evid. Code, § 1224, italics added.) Here, Faye seeks to admit against
deposition by her former attorney, Pinto,
who has since passed away, regarding statements he allegedly heard Finston make
in an unreported chambers conference.
Clearly, respondents have no liability, obligation or duty that “is
based in whole or in part upon the liability, obligation, or duty to
[Pinto].†Nor does Hans have any such
liability, obligation or duty with respect to Pinto (even assuming for the sake
of argument it could then be imputed to respondents for purposes of the
statute).
Second,
we note that, “[u]nder Evidence Code section 1201, where a statement involves multiple levels of hearsay,
each level must satisfy a hearsay exception in order for the entire statement
to be admissible.†(Cruey v. Gannett Co. (1998) 64 Cal.App.4th 356,
366.) Moreover, in satisfying the
hearsay exception, the burden is placed squarely on the statement’s proponent
(to wit, Faye). Here, Faye has failed to
identify any statutory hearsay exception that would support the admission of
deposition, as opposed to Finston’s. As
such, given her failure of proof, there is no basis to disturb the trial
court’s ruling. (See
v. SCME Mortgage Bankers, Inc.
(2003) 109 Cal.App.4th 1134, 1150 [affirming exclusion of an unavailable
witness’s deposition testimony on hearsay grounds and noting that “[f]ormer
testimony from a deposition rather than a trial is problematic since
depositions generally function as a discovery device where examination of one’s
own client is typically avoided so as not to reveal a weakness in the case or
to prematurely disclose a defenseâ€], citing Gatton
v. A.P. Green Services, Inc. (1998) 64 Cal.App.4th 688, 694-695.)
Finally,
even assuming for the sake of argument the trial court erred by excluding
Pinto’s deposition testimony, we would nonetheless conclude any such error was
harmless on this record. As the trial
court pointed out, the statements Pinto attributed to Finston were notably
untrustworthy. Made in an unreported
chambers conference, Finston’s statements “[we]ren’t necessarily quotes from
[his] client,†but rather “the best representations of what [he] believe[d] in
that moment that [his] client will want . . . .†Indeed, as respondents point out, “[t]he
statement recounted by Mr. Pinto was that Mr. Finston ‘agreed to
convey that to Mr. Beyeler and that as far as he knew that — that Ms.
Beyeler would be restored to all insurance policies.’ [Citation.] The only
representation reflected in that statement is a promise to convey information
to Mr. Beyeler. Nothing in that statement can reasonably be interpreted as
an acknowledgement or admission that community property life insurance existed,
or that Faye was a beneficiary of any separate property life insurance policy.†Moreover,
agreeing to convey the commissioner’s command to add Faye back to the policies
on its face fails to establish that Finston was authorized to make statements
by Hans. And, to the extent the
statements could be interpreted other than as a mere promise to convey
information, there was a more reliable way to produce such evidence: Faye could
have called Finston, the actual declarant, to testify as to their truth.
On
this record, we thus conclude Faye has not demonstrated, and cannot
demonstrate, “a different result would have been probable†if the purported
error in excluding Pinto’s statements had not occurred. (Pannu
v. Land Rover North America, Inc., supra, 191 Cal.App.4th at 1317; see also
Evid. Code § 354.)
II. Does substantial
evidence support the trial court’s findings regarding Hans’s
life insurance benefits?
Faye’s
next challenge is to the trial court’s findings relating to the nonexistence of
any life insurance policy from Smiths under which Faye was or had been named
beneficiary that was concealed by Hans.
We address the trial court’s specific findings in turn below, keeping in
mind that our review of factual findings, including findings relating to whether “a particular
item is separate or community property,†is limited to a determination of
whether substantial evidence supports it.
(In re Marriage of Dekker
(1993) 17 Cal.App.4th 842, 849.) We also
keep in mind the rule that “an employment-related term life insurance policy is
not a community property asset after expiration of the term acquired with
community funds/efforts.†(
re Marriage of Spengler
(1992) 5 Cal.App.4th 288, 297; see also Estate of Logan (1987) 191 Cal.App.3d 319, 325-326 [“[former wife]
has no community interest in [husband’s] term life insurance policy since
he was insurable when he commenced paying the premiums with his postseparation
property earningsâ€].)
Here,
the trial court’s primary factual finding was that Hans’s compensation
plan from Smiths did not include a term life insurance policy. To dispute this finding, Faye relies on her
own testimony at trial that, in 1998 or 1999, when Hans’s employment with
Smiths began, she helped him prepare employment benefit forms. On one of these forms, Faye recalled Hans
writing in her name as the primary beneficiary for life insurance. Faye acknowledged, however, that she did not
know the location of this form, and did not find a copy of it or of any other
Smiths life insurance form when she reviewed his papers after his death. The trial court rejected as not credible Faye’s
testimony regarding the existence of this benefit form identifying her as
beneficiary, a reasonable determination we decline to second-guess. (Hasson
v. Ford Motor Co. (1982) 32 Cal.3d 388, 398.)
Moreover,
adding support for the trial court’s finding, there was no documentary evidence
of any Smiths life insurance policy produced at trial by anyone. On the other hand, a response by the Smiths
custodian of records to a discovery request for “Beneficiary Designation Form
for Life Insurance of Hans Beyeler that was in effect in 2005†stated,
“Certification of No Records,†with the explanation that “Most likely
individual did not complete form.†In
addition, Faye’s Schedule of Assets and Debts that accompanied her answer to
Hans’s petition for dissolution identified, “None,†under the section of the
form labeled “Life Insurance With Cash Surrender or Loan Value.†To contradict this evidence, Faye points to
Hans’s pay stub for June 2007 indicating $18.96 was withheld for life
insurance by “General Electric as Disbursing Agent for: Smiths Aerospace LLC,â€
and to a beneficiary designation form prepared by Hans on April 7, 2007,
his GE hiring date, both of which she claims proves he had a
Smiths. However, the trial court
rejected Faye’s interpretation of this evidence, as it was entitled to do. And where, as here, two or more inferences
can be reasonably deduced from the evidence, we will not substitute our
deductions for those of the trial court.
Positas Partners v. Bollag (2009) 172 Cal.App.4th 101, 105.)
The
trial court alternatively found that, even if Smiths’s compensation plan had at
one time included term life insurance, any such plan would have ceased to exist
as of 31 days from May 7, 2007, the date that all of Hans’s benefits from
Smiths terminated under the terms of the GE acquisition. Documentary evidence in the form of a letter
from GE’s Employee Services Department, produced in response to Faye’s subpoena,
supports this finding. Specifically, the
letter states: “There were no residual Smiths Aerospace or Duarte Aerospace
benefits that continued beyond 31 days from the [GE] acquisition date of
May 7, 2007.†Faye offers no
evidence contradicting the information in this GE letter, which, by itself,
provides a sufficient basis upon which to affirm the trial court’s
finding. (In re Marriage of Valle (1975) 53 Cal.App.3d 837, 844.)
Lastly,
in a related finding, the trial court determined no community property funds
were used to purchase the life insurance policies that Hans acquired from GE
post-separation. Again, substantial evidence supports the
trial court. Undisputedly, Hans and Faye
separated in 2005, while the life insurance policies paid out to respondents
were issued to Hans as part of his employment benefit package with GE. Hans received this package, and the benefits
became effective, on or after GE
acquired Smiths on May 7, 2007.
Thus,
because we conclude there is substantial evidence in the record to support the
trial court’s factual findings with respect to Hans’s life insurance benefits,
Faye’s evidentiary challenges fail.
III. Did the trial court err
by failing to decide key issues relating to Hans’s alleged
breach of fiduciary duty?
Finally,
Faye contends the trial court committed reversible error by failing to decide
key legal issues relating to Hans’s alleged breach of fiduciary duty, including
his duty to disclose to her information relating to his new GE employment and
benefits, such as his life insurance benefit that was ultimately paid out to
respondents. According to Faye,
regardless of whether the GE salary and benefits were community or separate
property, Hans had a duty to disclose this information because it was “directly
related to payment of [spousal] support obligations, security for support
obligations, payment of attorney fees and security for the payment of attorney
fees.†In making this argument, Faye
relies upon the various duties of disclosure and fair dealing required of
spouses during marriage pending final disposition of marital property that are
set forth in Family Code sections 721 and 2102, subdivision (c), and in
Corporations Code section 16403 (which, in turn, is made applicable through
Family Code section 721). As explained
below, we conclude Faye’s reasoning is flawed.
As
an initial matter, we note the record does not support Faye’s claim that the
trial court neglected to address her breach-of-duty arguments in its statement
of decision. Rather, the record reflects
that the trial court found Faye’s legal authority, and in particular the
above-mentioned Family and Corporations Code provisions, did not support her
theory that Hans owed her any fiduciary duty with respect to his GE life
insurance benefit.
title="">[7]
In
any event, however, because we affirm the trial court’s factual findings
regarding the nonexistence of life insurance from Hans’s pre-separation
employment with Smiths, we need not address in detail the trial court’s
rejection of Faye’s authority regarding the legal issue of whether Hans breached
his fiduciary duty to disclose his GE benefits to her. As the trial court found, Hans’s
post-separation GE life insurance benefit was his separate property. (E.g., Estate
of Logan, supra,191 Cal.App.3d at p. 325 [“term life insurance
covering a spouse who remains insurable is community property only for the
period beyond the date of separation for which community funds were used to pay
the premiumâ€].) As such, Hans was
entitled to name whomever he wished, including his children, as the
beneficiaries of his separate property life insurance. And, because Faye has failed to prove she had
any legal or equitable entitlement to the proceeds of the life insurance
policies paid out to respondents upon Hans’s death in accordance with his
contractual will, Faye’s unjust enrichment claim and request for a constructive
trust over those proceeds fail regardless of any concealment by Hans of the
existence of those policies during the dissolution process. Simply put, Faye’s contention that Hans breached his fiduciary
duty by failing to disclose the separate property life insurance policies is
moot because she has no legal right to that property.
1101(a)] provide for an action for damages for a breach of fiduciary duty, not
for a right to some specific property in case of a breach . . . .â€].)
As
Faye herself points out, unjust enrichment is a broad equitable principle
designed to ensure people do not profit from their own wrongdoing. There is no evidence in this case, however,
that respondents engaged in any wrongdoing.
Rather, they are simply the beneficiaries of a valid contract entered
into by their now-deceased father following his legal separation from their
mother. As such, judgment in
respondents’ favor was appropriate.
DISPOSITION
The
judgment is affirmed. Appellant shall
bear costs on appeal.
_________________________
Jenkins,
J.
We concur:
_________________________
McGuiness, P. J.
_________________________
Pollak, J.
name="_ftn1" title="">[1] Given the parties’ shared surname, we refer to
individual family members by their first name to avoid confusion, intending
thereby no disrespect.
There is other evidence that the
acquisition occurred on May 5, 2007, the date apparently used
administratively by GE as Hans’s first day of employment for purposes of
payroll and benefit calculations.
However, to the extent there is any discrepancy, it does not affect the
legal analysis or outcome of this case and, thus, is discussed no further.
