In re Guardianship and Conservatorship of Helen Louise Durand, Ward/Protected Person. , 859 N.W.2d 780 ( 2015 )

STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN SUPREME COURT
A13-1415
Court of Appeals Lillehaug, J.
In re Guardianship and Conservatorship of
Helen Louise Durand, Ward/Protected Person.
Filed: February 18, 2015
Office of Appellate Courts
_________________________________
Luther M. Amundson, Maser Amundson Boggio & Hendricks, P.A., Minneapolis,
Minnesota, for appellant Alternative Decision Makers, Inc.
Lynn Krebes-Lufkin, Boston, Massachusetts, pro se personal representative of the estate
of William F. Krebes, respondent.
_________________________________
SYLLABUS
Minnesota Statutes § 524.2-212 (2014), which treats protected and non-protected
persons differently in probate proceedings, has a rational basis and therefore does not
violate the right to equal protection under the Minnesota Constitution.
Affirmed.
Considered and decided by the court without oral argument.
OPINION
LILLEHAUG, Justice.
Helen Durand survived her spouse, but was placed under a conservatorship shortly
after his death. Minnesota Statutes § 524.2-212 (2014) required her conservator, before
filing for Durand’s elective share in her deceased husband’s probate proceeding, to obtain
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a court order authorizing the filing. The district court declared that this requirement
violated the Minnesota Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection. The court of appeals
disagreed and reversed. Because the statute has a rational basis, we affirm the court of
appeals.
I.
William Krebes died on October 14, 2009, survived by his wife Helen Durand.
Lynn Krebes-Lufkin, Krebes’s daughter, was appointed as personal representative of
Krebes’s estate by the Dakota County Probate Court.
In early 2010 two of Durand’s children, Paul Durand and Mary Jo Kattar,
petitioned the Hennepin County District Court for the appointment of a conservator for
their mother. The petition stated that Durand needed a conservator because she lacked
“the clarity of mind to communicate with an attorney and make informed decisions about
what is happening in the [Dakota County] probate case.”
The Hennepin County District Court agreed and appointed Alternate Decision
Makers, Inc. (“ADMI”) as emergency conservator of Durand’s estate, with powers
limited to matters related to the Dakota County probate proceeding. The district court
found that Durand lacked “the capacity to make decisions in her own best interest relative
to her late husband’s estate . . . and specifically that she lacks the ability to understand
legal advice, to work with an attorney in her own best interest and to make a decision
based upon the advice of an attorney.” Several months later, finding that Durand was
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vulnerable to potential financial exploitation, the district court appointed ADMI as
general conservator.1
ADMI petitioned the Hennepin County District Court for authorization to file for
Durand’s elective share in the Dakota County probate proceeding. The Hennepin County
District Court granted the petition. ADMI then filed an elective share petition on
Durand’s behalf in the Dakota County Probate Court. But Krebes-Lufkin, acting as
personal representative of Krebes’s estate, moved the Hennepin County District Court to
vacate its order.2
Krebes-Lufkin argued that: (1) she did not receive proper notice of ADMI’s
petition for authorization; and (2) the Hennepin County court had not found that the
exercise of the right of election was necessary to provide adequate support for Durand, a
“protected person” under a conservatorship, as required by Minn. Stat. § 524.2-212. The
Hennepin County District Court granted the motion to vacate and ordered an evidentiary
hearing on ADMI’s petition.
Prior to the evidentiary hearing, ADMI moved for summary judgment. ADMI
argued that Minn. Stat. § 524.2-212 violated Durand’s equal protection rights because
“protected persons” are “treated differently than similarly situated spouses without such
infirmities.” ADMI argued that if Durand were not a protected person under the statute,
1
In early 2011, with Durand’s condition failing to improve, the Hennepin County
District Court also appointed ADMI as her guardian.
2
Krebes-Lufkin initially challenged the Hennepin County District Court order in
the Dakota County probate proceeding, but did not prevail. See In re Estate of Krebes,
2012 WL 987310 (Minn. App. Mar. 26, 2012), rev. denied (Minn. June 19, 2012).
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“her right to an election would be automatic pursuant to Minn. Stat. § 524.2-202.”
Krebes-Lufkin responded that the rational purpose of the statute was “to ensure that the
incapacitated surviving spouse’s needs are provided [for] while simultaneously protecting
the testamentary wishes of the decedent by ensuring that the conservator does not divert
the decedent’s assets to the heirs of the protected person.”
Concluding that the statute violated the Minnesota Constitution’s equal protection
guarantee, the district court granted ADMI’s motion for summary judgment. The court
examined the elective share statute under Minnesota’s rational basis test. First, the court
held that “[w]hen it comes to choosing whether to elect against a will, there is no
reasonable justification for treating spouses acting through conservators differently from
spouses acting on their own.” Second, the court held that there was “no reasonable
connection between the actual effects of the challenged classification and the statutory
goals.” Third, the court held that while Minnesota may legitimately attempt to have
elective share decisions be motivated by need instead of personal gain, “it must enact
across-the-board legislation rather than legislation impermissibly targeting spouses who
are protected persons.”
Krebes-Lufkin appealed. In a published opinion, the court of appeals reversed. In
re Durand, 845 N.W.2d 821, 823 (Minn. App. 2014). The court of appeals reasoned that
because the State “has determined [that] a protected person’s impairment warrants
additional protections and has legislated accordingly,” protected and non-protected
surviving spouses are not similarly situated. Id. at 826. Because the court of appeals
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applied a “similarly situated” analysis at the threshold, it did not reach the rational basis
test.
We granted ADMI’s petition for review.
II.
The only question before us is whether differentiating between protected and non-
protected persons in Minn. Stat. § 542.2-212 violates equal protection under the
Minnesota Constitution. Whether a statute is unconstitutional is a question of law that we
review de novo. State v. Cox, 798 N.W.2d 517, 519 (Minn. 2011). Statutes are presumed
to be constitutional and our “power to declare a statute unconstitutional should be
exercised with extreme caution and only when absolutely necessary.” In re Welfare of
B.A.H., 845 N.W.2d 158, 162 (Minn. 2014).
A.
The Minnesota Constitution guarantees that “[n]o member of this state shall be
disenfranchised or deprived of any of the rights or privileges secured to any citizen
thereof, unless by the law of the land or the judgment of his peers.” Minn. Const. art. 1,
§ 2. Although the phrase “equal protection” is not used, we have recognized that the
Minnesota Constitution “embodies principles of equal protection synonymous to the
equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.”
State v. Russell, 477 N.W.2d 886, 889 n.3 (Minn. 1991).
In deciding that Minn. Stat. § 542.2-212 did not violate equal protection, the court
of appeals applied a “similarly situated” threshold test. While we have applied such a test
in certain equal protection cases, we need not decide whether or how to apply it here,
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because we can decide the case without great difficulty by applying the proper degree of
scrutiny to the classifications created by the Legislature.3
If an equal protection challenge under the Minnesota Constitution involves either a
suspect classification or a fundamental right, we apply strict scrutiny, which requires the
classification to be “narrowly tailored and reasonably necessary to further a compelling
governmental interest.” See Greene v. Comm’r of Minn. Dep’t of Human Servs., 755
N.W.2d 713, 725 (Minn. 2008) (quoting Hennepin Cnty. v. Perry, 561 N.W.2d 889, 897
n.7 (Minn. 1997)). We apply intermediate scrutiny to gender-based classifications. See
State ex rel. Forslund v. Bronson, 305 N.W.2d 748, 750 (Minn. 1981). Otherwise, we
apply Minnesota’s rational-basis test. Gluba ex rel. Gluba v. Bitzan & Ohren Masonry,
735 N.W.2d 713, 719 (Minn. 2007). We have characterized the Minnesota rational-basis
test as “a more stringent standard of review” than its federal counterpart. See Russell,
477 N.W.2d at 889. Under Minnesota’s rational-basis test, a statute must satisfy three
requirements:
(1) The distinctions which separate those included within the classification
from those excluded must not be manifestly arbitrary or fanciful but must
be genuine and substantial, thereby providing a natural and reasonable basis
to justify legislation adapted to peculiar conditions and needs; (2) the
classification must be genuine or relevant to the purpose of the law; that is
there must be an evident connection between the distinctive needs peculiar
to the class and the prescribed remedy; and (3) the purpose of the statute
must be one that the state can legitimately attempt to achieve.
3
We took such an approach in In re Child of R.D.L., 853 N.W.2d 127, 132 (Minn.
2014), in which we declined to decide whether the similarly situated threshold test
applies to classifications warranting strict scrutiny. The statute at issue in R.D.L.
survived strict scrutiny. Id. at 138.
6
Id. at 888 (quoting Wegan v. Vill. of Lexington, 309 N.W.2d 273, 280 (Minn. 1981)).
B.
ADMI’s equal protection challenge requires us to examine two statutory concepts:
the right of election and the nature of conservatorships.
Minnesota Statutes § 524.2-202 (2014) provides surviving spouses with the right
of election. The right of election allows a person who survives his or her spouse to elect
to take a share of the decedent spouse’s “augmented estate,” rather than what would be
received under the decedent spouse’s will. Id. The augmented estate consists of:
the sum of the values of all property, whether real or personal, movable or
immovable, tangible or intangible, wherever situated, that constitute the
decedent’s net probate estate, the decedent’s nonprobate transfers to others,
the decedent’s nonprobate transfers to the surviving spouse, and the
surviving spouse’s property and nonprobate transfers to others.
Minn. Stat. § 524.2-203 (2014). The amount of the elective share varies from zero to 50
percent of the augmented estate, depending on the length of the marriage. Minn. Stat.
§ 524.2-202.
The statutory scheme limits the right of election for a surviving spouse who is a
“protected person,” defined as “a minor or other individual for whom a conservator has
been appointed or other protective order has been made.” Minn. Stat. § 524.5-102, subd.
14 (2014). In the case of a protected person:
[T]he right of election may be exercised only by order of the court in which
protective proceedings as to the protected person’s property are pending,
after finding (1) that exercise is necessary to provide adequate support for
the protected person during the protected person’s probable life expectancy
and (2) that the election will be consistent with the best interests of the
natural bounty of the protected person’s affection.
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Minn. Stat. § 524.2-212 (2014). No such court order is required for non-protected
persons who exercise their rights of election. See id.
Conservatorships are governed by Minnesota’s version of the Uniform Probate
Code. A court may appoint a conservator if it finds: (1) “the individual is unable to
manage property and business affairs because of an impairment in the ability to receive
and evaluate information or make decisions;” (2) “the individual has property that will be
wasted or dissipated unless management is provided or money is needed for the support,
care, education, health, and welfare of the individual . . . and that protection is necessary
or desirable to obtain or provide money;” and (3) the individual’s “needs cannot be met
by less restrictive means, including use of appropriate technological assistance.” Minn.
Stat. § 524.5-409, subd. 1(a) (2014). A court may only grant a conservator the “powers
necessary to provide for the demonstrated needs of the protected person.” Minn. Stat.
§ 524.5-417(b) (2014).
While conservators may have wide-ranging duties and powers, conservators are
still “subject to the control and direction of the court at all times and in all things.” Minn.
Stat. § 524.5-417(a) (2014). A conservator must seek approval from the court before
performing certain acts on behalf of the protected person, such as making gifts,
conveying property, exercising a right of election, or making a will. Minn. Stat. § 524.5-
411(a) (2014). Additionally, conservators must keep records of the administration of the
estate and make them available to the court and the protected person. Minn. Stat.
§ 524.5-419 (2014). Any person interested in the protected person’s welfare may petition
the court to terminate the conservatorship upon a showing that the protected person no
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longer needs the conservator’s assistance or protection. Minn. Stat. § 524.5-431(c)
(2014).
C.
Minnesota Statutes § 524.2-212 creates two classes: protected surviving spouses
and non-protected surviving spouses. On whether this classification violates equal
protection, both parties assume that the rational basis standard applies. The parties are
correct.
A “protected person” is not a suspect classification like race or alienage. See In re
Harhut, 385 N.W.2d 305, 310 (Minn. 1986) (identifying examples of suspect
classifications). Rather, “protected persons” are similar to the class consisting of
mentally disabled individuals in City of Cleburne, Tex. v. Cleburne Living Ctr., Inc., 473
U.S. 432 (1985). In that case, the Court declined to hold that mental disability was even
a quasi-suspect classification.4 Id. at 442. It reasoned that the mentally disabled are
immutably different from one another in relevant respects, particularly in their ability to
function in the everyday world, because the mentally disabled “range from those whose
disability is not immediately evident to those who must be constantly cared for.” Id. at
442-43. This is similar to “protected persons” who are unable to manage property and
business affairs and who also range widely in their impairments and the level of care they
4
Quasi-suspect classifications are subject to a heightened standard of review that is
more exacting than rational basis review. See id. at 446.
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require.5 See Minn. Stat. § 542.5-409, subd. 1(c) (“The court, whenever feasible, shall
grant to a conservator only those powers necessitated by the protected person’s
limitations and demonstrated needs and make appointive and other orders that will
encourage the development of the protected person’s maximum self-reliance and
independence.”).
Further, the right of election is not a fundamental right. Fundamental rights must
be found in or implied from the terms of either the state or federal constitution. Skeen v.
State, 505 N.W.2d 299, 312-13 (Minn. 1993). Nothing in either constitution appears to
protect the right of election or any similar right.6
Because “protected persons” are not a suspect class and the right of election is not
a fundamental right, we apply rational basis review. Under that standard, we must
decide: (1) whether the distinctions between the classes are genuine and substantial;
(2) whether there is an evident connection between the needs of the class and the
prescribed remedy; and (3) whether the purpose of the statute is one that the State can
legitimately attempt to achieve. Russell, 477 N.W.2d at 888.
5
Following the Cleburne case, we have declined to extend a higher standard of
review to classifications based on mental and physical disabilities. See Harhut, 385
N.W.2d at 310-11; see also Gluba ex rel. Gluba v. Bitzan & Ohren Masonry, 735 N.W.2d
713, 719-20 (Minn. 2007).
6
Two other states have held that such rights are not fundamental. See Sweeney v.
Summers, 571 P.2d 1067, 1070 (Colo. 1977) (holding that “the scheme of the [elective
share] statute does not deprive incompetent spouses of any fundamental (constitutional)
rights”); In re Epperson, 679 S.W.2d 792, 793-94 (Ark. 1984) (declining to hold that
dower rights are fundamental rights, as they arise from statute).
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First, the distinctions are genuine and substantial. Protected spouses are under an
order, such as a conservatorship, that recognizes their limited ability to manage financial
affairs. On the other hand, non-protected spouses are ordinarily free to conduct their
financial affairs as they wish, even to the detriment of all parties involved, including
themselves. We have long recognized such a distinction. See In re Estate of Carey, 194
Minn. 127, 142-43, 260 N.W. 320, 327 (1935).
In this case, Durand is “unable to manage property and business affairs because of
an impairment in [her] ability to receive and evaluate information or make decisions.”
Minn. Stat. § 524.5-409, subd. 1(a). This impairment provides a genuine and substantial
basis to justify a legislative distinction focused on protected persons’ needs. Protected
persons are more vulnerable to exploitation and need protection—they are called
“protected persons” for a reason. So it is not surprising that elective share provisions
limiting the rights of protected persons have survived rational basis review in other states.
See Sweeney v. Summers, 571 P.2d 1067, 1070 (Colo. 1977); In re Merkel, 618 P.2d 872,
875 (Mont. 1980).
Second, an evident connection exists between the distinctive needs of protected
persons and the court order required by the statute. Because protected persons such as
Durand are unable to manage their financial affairs, the elective share statute requires a
conservator to petition for judicial approval of an election. Minn. Stat. § 524.2-212. A
surviving spouse may ordinarily rely on personal pecuniary considerations when deciding
whether to elect against a will, and the decision may be based on anything, including
sentiment, respect for the deceased spouse’s wishes, or the financial well-being of the
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deceased spouse’s devisees. See McElroy v. Taylor, 977 S.W.2d 929, 932 (Ky. 1998)
(“[W]hen the election is made within the time allowed and in the proper manner, it is
wholly immaterial what reasons induced the devisee to make the election. Its validity
cannot be inquired into.”) (quoting Harding’s Adm’r v. Harding’s Ex’r, 130 S.W. 1098
(Ky. 1910)). But for protected persons, the Legislature rationally determined that a
conservator, whose duty it is to manage the pecuniary affairs of a protected person,
should not have the unilateral power to make a decision that should be based on both
pecuniary and non-pecuniary interests. The Legislature rationally provided that the
process should include judicial oversight by findings and an order.
Third, the purpose of the statute is one that the State can legitimately attempt to
achieve. Because protected spouses may well lack the capacity to manage money, an
election by an adequately supported protected spouse only serves to transfer assets from
the decedent’s devisees to the surviving spouse’s heirs or devisees. Requiring a
conservator to show that the election is necessary to provide adequate support thus
rationally balances the deceased spouse’s testamentary wishes with the surviving
protected spouse’s needs. We have long recognized that it is proper to balance such
interests. See State ex rel. Percy v. Hunt, 88 Minn. 404, 410, 93 N.W. 314, 316 (1903)
(“If . . . it is found that the effect of an election to waive the provisions of the will will be
to divert property from the channel in which the testator intended it to go, and, if the
diversion is not required by the wants and circumstances of the widow, the prayer of the
bill cannot be granted.”) (quoting Penhallow v. Kimball, 61 N.H. 596, 599 (1882)).
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Thus, applying rational basis review, we hold that the distinction between
protected and non-protected spouses in the elective share statute does not violate the
Minnesota Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection.
Affirmed.
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