Martens v. Robinson
Filed 11/15/13 Martens v. Robinson CA4/1
California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts
and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or
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COURT
OF APPEAL, FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT
DIVISION
ONE
STATE
OF CALIFORNIA
DONNA MARTENS,
Petitioner and Respondent,
v.
ANNETTE RAE ROBINSON,
Objector and Appellant.
D063024
(Super. Ct.
No. 37-2009-00151849-PR-TR-CTL)
APPEAL from
a judgment of the Superior Court
of
County, John Meyer, Judge.
Affirmed.
Annette Rae
Robinson, in pro. per.; Southern California Realty Law,
Shanna E. Welsh; and J. Kent Holland for Objector and Appellant.
Higgs,
Fletcher & Mack, Victoria E. Fuller; and Barbara L. Richards for Petitioner
and Respondent.
Annette Rae
Robinson appeals from a judgment on a petition brought by Donna Martens, invalidating
an amendment to decedent William R. Kuhner's trust and disqualifying Robinson
as a transferee of the trust's assets.
Robinson contends that the trial court erred in rejecting her argument
that Martens's claims are barred by the doctrine of unclean hands. We conclude that Robinson has failed to
provide an adequate appellate record to support her contention, and accordingly
we affirm the judgment.
I
FACTUAL
AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
Kuhner
executed a declaration of living trust in 2006 (the 2006 Trust), leaving his
real and personal property to his daughter, Martens, who was to become the
successor trustee upon Kuhner's death. In March 2009, Kuhner was diagnosed with
end-stage congestive heart failure. He
was given a life-expectancy of less than six-months and required 24-hour
care. Martens hired Robinson to provide
care for Kuhner in his own home. Robinson was a neighbor and had been friends
with Kuhner since 1999.
name="_ftnref1" title="">[1]
As the
trial court found in its statement of decision, Kuhner was forgetful and
confused while Robinson was caring for him and was susceptible to undue
influence. An evaluation by a physician
on May 20, 2009, concluded
that Kuhner lacked capacity to handle his finances.
Robinson
had unlimited control over Kuhner's financial accounts and took frequent
distributions for herself in excess of the agreed-upon rate for
caregiving. Shortly after she was hired
as Kuhner's caregiver, Robinson began taking Kuhner to meetings with attorneys for
the purpose of amending the 2006 Trust.
On June 18, 2009,
Robinson prepared a quitclaim deed purporting to transfer Kuhner's home to
Robinson, but that deed was ineffective because the home was owned by Kuhner's
trust, not Kuhner individually.
On June 30, 2009, while Robinson
was present, Kuhner executed an amendment to the 2006 Trust (the 2009 Trust
Amendment) that disinherited Martens, made a gift of $20,000 to Robinson, left
all of Kuhner's real and personal property to Robinson, and made Robinson the
successor trustee upon Kuhner's death. Kuhner
died on July 14, 2009,
two weeks after the 2009 Trust Amendment was executed.
Three days
after Kuhner's death, Martens, as successor trustee of the 2006 Trust, filed a
petition in superior court to determine the trust's assets. The petition contained allegations about Robinson's
attempt, in June 2009, to quitclaim Kuhner's home to herself, but the petition
contained no mention of the 2009 Trust Amendment. It is not clear from the appellate record
whether Martens was aware of the 2009 Trust Amendment at the time she filed the
petition.
According
to a trial exhibit that appears in the appellate record, on July 23, 2009, Martens — as
successor trustee under the 2006 Trust — recorded a quitclaim deed of Kuhner's
home transferring the home to herself as an individual.
In October
2009, Martens filed a second petition, which expressly sought to adjudicate the
invalidity of the 2009 Trust Amendment and to disqualify Robinson from
obtaining any of the trust assets.
name="_ftnref3" title="">[3]
Trial
commenced on August 17, 2012,
with both Martens and Robinson represented by counsel. Closing arguments were made on August 28, 2012, after which the
trial court orally delivered an intended statement of decision in favor of
Martens. The only portion of the reporter's
transcript that Robinson has provided for the appellate record is the
transcript of the proceedings on August 28,
2012.
On October 2, 2012, the trial court filed
a written statement of decision in favor of Martens, and judgment was entered accordingly.
The trial court determined that (1) Robinson
was a prohibited transferee of the trust assets because she was a care
custodian as defined in the relevant statutes,
did not meet her burden to prove by clear and convincing evidence that the 2009
Trust Amendment and the June 18, 2009 quitclaim deed were not products of
undue influence or fraud; (2) a preponderance of the evidence established
that the 2009 Trust Amendment and the June 18, 2009 quitclaim deed were
the result of undue influence and fraud; (3) Kuhner lacked capacity to
sign the 2009 Trust Amendment; and (4) Robinson wrongfully took $17,828.93
from Kuhner's assets that she was required to restore. The trial court invalidated the 2009 Trust
Amendment, restored the 2006 Trust, removed Robinson as trustee, confirmed
Martens as trustee, and ordered Robinson to vacate Kuhner's home.
Robinson
filed a notice of appeal from the judgment.
II
DISCUSSION
Robinson's
sole contention on appeal is that the trial court erred in determining that the
doctrine of unclean hands did not bar Martens from prevailing in this action.
We begin by
reviewing the legal principles applicable to a defense of unclean hands. "The defense of unclean hands arises
from the maxim, ' " 'He who comes into Equity
must come with clean hands.' " ' [Citation.] The doctrine demands that a plaintiff act
fairly in the matter for which
keep them clean, or he will be denied relief, regardless of the merits of his
claim. [Citations.] The defense is available in legal as well as
equitable actions. [Citations.] Whether the doctrine of unclean hands applies
is a question of fact." (
Court (1999) 76 Cal.App.4th 970, 978 (Kendall-Jackson).)
"The
misconduct that brings the unclean hands doctrine into play must relate directly
to the cause at issue." (
the transaction concerning which the complaint is made, i.e., it must pertain
to the very subject matter involved and affect the equitable relations between
the litigants.' [Citation.] '[T]here must be a direct relationship
between the misconduct and the claimed injuries . . . " 'so that it would be
inequitable to grant [the requested] relief.' " ' "
(Ibid.) "The misconduct must ' " 'prejudicially affect . . .
the rights of the person against whom the relief is sought so that it would be
inequitable to grant such relief.' " ' "
particular misconduct is a bar to the alleged claim for relief depends on
(1) analogous case law, (2) the nature of the misconduct, and (3) the
relationship of the misconduct to the claimed injuries." (Ibid.)
Robinson
argues that the doctrine of unclean hands applies here because Martens
supposedly engaged in wrongful conduct, in her capacity as trustee of the 2006
Trust, when she recorded a quitclaim deed transferring Kuhner's home to herself
as an individual on July 23, 2009,
nine days after Kuhner's death. According
to Robinson, this conduct constituted unclean hands because Martens had been
removed as trustee by virtue of the 2009 Trust Amendment and thus had no
authority to effectuate a transfer of the trust assets. At oral argument, Robinson argued that Marten
acted with unclean hands because the quit claim deed was filed in violation of
a provision in the 2006 Trust requiring that the trustee distribute personal
property listed on a memorandum of personal property before addressing the rest
of the trust assets, including real property.
In line
with some of her appellate theories, counsel for Robinson asserted during
closing arguments that the doctrine of unclean hands applied because Martens
knew that the trust had been amended and "she then went and recorded a
deed transferring the property from herself as the successor and trustee of the
2006 Trust to herself . . . . So it was a forged deed. She knew she wasn't
the trustee; she's out there forging and filing a deed." As part of its intended statement of
decision, the trial court stated that "there's no unclean hands on [Martens's]
part."
As we will
explain, Robinson has not provided an adequate appellate record to support the
basic factual predicates of her argument that the doctrine of unclean hands
applies. " 'It is the duty of an appellant to provide
an adequate record to the court establishing error. Failure to provide an adequate record on an
issue requires that the issue be resolved against appellant. [Citation.]'
[Citation.] This principle stems
from the well-established rule of appellate review that a judgment or order is
presumed correct and the appellant has the burden of demonstrating prejudicial
error." (Hotels Nevada
203 Cal.App.4th 336, 348.) "[A]
record is inadequate, and appellant defaults, if the appellant predicates error
only on the part of the record he provides . . . , but ignores
or does not present to the appellate court portions of the proceedings below
which may provide grounds upon which the decision of the trial court could be
affirmed." (Uniroyal Chemical Co. v. American Vanguard Corp. (1988) 203
Cal.App.3d 285, 302.) When an appellant "fail[s]
to provide an adequate record, appellant cannot meet his burden to show error
and we must resolve any challenge to the order against him." (Hotels
Nevada, at p. 348.) Issues
raised without the provision of an adequate appellate record for us to evaluate
them are "deemed waived." (
Cal.App.4th 1000, 1003.)
Robinson's
unclean hands argument assumes that Martens knew of the 2009 Trust Amendment
when she filed the quitclaim deed on July 23, 2009, in her capacity as
trustee. It also assumes that Martens filed
the quit claim deed before distributing property identified in a personal
property memorandum. However, because the
reporter's transcript from the trial is limited to the proceedings on August 28,
2012, the record contains none of the trial testimony. Further, we have no information about which documents
were received into evidence.
name="_ftnref6" title="">[6] As we have explained, an evaluation of whether
the doctrine of unclean hands applies requires a focus on "the nature of
the misconduct" and "the relationship of the misconduct to the
claimed injuries." (
with any of the evidence from trial, she has failed to present any evidence
relating to the issues that are crucial to her argument. By not supplying an adequate appellate record,
Robinson has effectively waived her appellate argument that the trial court erred
in not applying the doctrine of unclean hands.
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
IRION, J.
WE CONCUR:
McCONNELL, P. J.
O'ROURKE,
J.
name="_ftn1" title="">[1] Because Robinson has provided us with neither a reporter's
transcript of the evidence presented at trial, nor copies of most of the trial
exhibits, we base our factual recitation on the trial court's statement of
decision and the few trial exhibits contained in the appellate record.
name="_ftn2" title="">[2] As we do not have the reporter's transcript of the evidence
portion of the trial or a full copy of the clerk's minutes, it is not clear
whether the July 23, 2009 quitclaim deed was received into evidence. The sticker on the copy of the document
appearing in the appellate record indicates only that the document was
identified as court's exhibit No. 44-0; it does not indicate that the
exhibit was received into evidence.
