Matter of Ann Stevenson Hauck Separate Property Trust

Case Number

23PR00277

Case Type

Hearing Date / Time

Tue, 10/03/2023 - 09:00

Nature of Proceedings

Petition for Internal Affairs and Instruction; Motion to Transfer Venue

Tentative Ruling

Probate Notes:

Appearances required. 

There are two matters scheduled for this hearing:

Petition for Internal Affairs and Instruction, filed by Ms. Aguilar on May 19, 2023, and Amended on July 28, 2023.  There is no written opposition to this petition on file.

Motion for Change of Venue, filed August 24, 2023 by Mr. Hauck, and opposed by Ms. Aguilar on September 20, 2023.  The motion was unverified, and is therefore subject to being stricken from the record pursuant to CCP, section 436(b).  It is recommended the Court determine the motion on the merits, in-spite-of this defect.

Any Respondents desirous to object to the Petition, must file a written objection before the hearing.  The court has authority to require all objectors to file a written objection pursuant CRC, Rule 7.801, or else deem the failure to do so a waiver.

The following analysis is provided for the Court at the hearing re: the Motion for Change of Venue:

Mr. Hauck’s motion boils down to an argument that venue is more appropriate in San Diego Superior Court, because 1) Decedent and Mr. Hauck’s lives were firmly rooted in that venue before the death of Decedent;  2) Mr. Hauck believes Petitioner had access to Decedent and Mr. Hauck’s estate plan while Decedent was ill and Mr. Hauck was too weak to care for her; and 3) Petitioner lost her right to venue in this court by sending a notice pursuant to Probate Code section 16061.7, which contained a statement that the trust is administered in Escondido, San Diego County, California.

For the reasons discussed below, all three of Mr. Hauck’s un-verified arguments fail at the starting line due to three judicial admissions that judicially estopp Mr. Hauck on the blocks.

First, Mr. Hauck admits the rightful, currently serving trustee is Petitioner, Sara A. Aguilar, in a pleading filed in the Superior Court in San Diego.  In that pleading, Mr. Hauck seeks to remove Ms. Aguilar as the currently acting trustee. Mr. Hauck also admits in this very motion that the petition filed in the San Diego Court was Mr. Hauck’s attempt “to exercise his rights under the trust instrument to remove the currently acting Trustee, Sara Aguilar” (Mot. to Transf. Ven., p. 4, lns. 1-2 [emphasis added]), who lives in Lompoc.  This admission judicially estopps Mr. Hauck from claiming venue in Santa Maria is not proper, because the statement is a judicial admission that Ms. Aguilar is the proper trustee (whether or not she is in breach), and Probate Code section 17005 makes venue appropriate where Ms. Aguilar currently administers the trust, which appears on the face of the pleadings to be from Ms. Aguilar’s home in Lompoc, California…which is within the boundaries of this venue.

Upon thorough review of the undisputed 2016 trust, and its restatement in the disputed 2022 trust, as well as thorough review of Mr. Hauck’s confusingly pleaded San Diego action, does Mr. Hauck allege any fact a court can rely upon to hold Ms. Aguilar is not the rightful successor trustee of Decedent’s plainly worded, crystal-clear separate property trust.  Thus, where Ms. Aguilar chooses to administer the day-to-day business of the subject trust is controlling (Prob. Code, §17002(a) or (b)), not a letter Ms. Aguilar sent in September of 2022.

Additionally damning to Mr. Hauck’s other two arguments ever passing the starting line, are the allegations that operate as judicial admissions that Mr. Hauck attempted to end-around the authority of this Court to determine the first-in-time filed petition by the currently acting trustee, who administers the trust from Lompoc. Mr. Hauck’s argument that Petitioner forfeited her right to venue in this court due to the September 2022 letter, crosses the border into the forbidden forest of unmeritorious claims.  There is not a single California case or statute in existence to support that claim (nor was one cited), and Mr. Hauck was well aware that the currently acting trustee had not only changed her representation to attorneys in this venue, but filed a claim in May 2023 as trustee, in this venue, for relief that plainly includes instruction from this court related to the administration of the trust in this venue.  Thus, while in the forbidden forest of unmeritorious claims, Mr. Hauck also drank from the poisonous well of forum-shopping, because he was well aware of the trustee’s assertion of venue within this court’s jurisdiction, but decided to shop his claims elsewhere despite that knowledge.

Appearances:

The court is open to the public for court business. The court is also conducting hearings via Zoom videoconference.

Meeting ID: 160 543 3416

Passcode: 5053334