Wilson v. Sanders

447 P.3d 1240

Gary WILSON, Appellee,

v.Elisabeth W. SANDERS and Hiram Sanders, Appellants.

No. 20180048-CA

Court of Appeals of Utah.

Filed July 18, 2019

Richard Lee Sanders, Attorney for Appellants

Clinton Justin Cutler, Attorney for Appellee

Judge Ryan M. Harris authored this Opinion, in which Judges Gregory K. Orme and Michele M. Christiansen Forster concurred.

Amended Opinion¹

HARRIS, Judge:

¶1 After Elizabeth Wilson (Mother) died, her two adult children ended up in litigation over her estate. Gary Wilson (Plaintiff) sued his sister Elisabeth W. Sanders (Sister) and her husband Hiram Sanders (collectively, Defendants), seeking an order invalidating Mother’s most recent testamentary instrument on the grounds that Defendants had subjected her to undue influence, and alleging that Defendants had intentionally inflicted emotional distress upon him. The case was eventually tried to a jury, which was persuaded by Plaintiff’s arguments and not only found that Defendants had unduly influenced Mother, but also awarded Plaintiff $170,000 on his emotional distress claim, most of which was for punitive damages. Defendants now appeal, and raise various arguments assailing the jury’s verdict. We affirm.

BACKGROUND²

¶2 In December 2000, Plaintiff permanently relocated from Colorado to Utah to help care for his aging parents, and moved into their house. Plaintiff paid monthly rent and lived in the basement, while his parents lived upstairs. Plaintiff was employed as a school bus driver, which allowed him to spend time at home caring for his parents and maintaining the house. Plaintiff testified that, during this time, Defendants—who lived in Utah—came to the house to visit only once or twice a year, usually on major holidays. In 2006, Mother created a revocable trust (First Trust) that listed both Plaintiff and Sister as beneficiaries, each slated to receive an equal distribution of trust assets. In 2008, Plaintiff and Sister’s father passed away.

¶3 In February 2015, at the age of eighty-five, Mother fell in a parking lot and hit her head, requiring emergency cranial surgery. Following the surgery, Mother had difficulty speaking and forming sentences, and even had a hard time recognizing her children. According to Plaintiff, she seemed "eager to please" and "very susceptible to suggestion and manipulation."

¶4 In April 2015, at Defendants’ suggestion, Mother revoked the First Trust and created a second trust (Second Trust), changing the identity of the trustee to an attorney selected by Sister, but not changing the identity of the beneficiaries. One month later, Mother amended the Second Trust to alter the percentage of assets her children would receive, changing the arrangement from fifty-fifty to sixty-forty in favor of Plaintiff.

¶5 In July 2015, without informing Plaintiff, Defendants took Mother out of her home and placed her in a hotel room, where she resided for six weeks. During this time, Defendants did not allow Mother to make or receive phone calls and Plaintiff was unable to contact her. While still living in the hotel and out of contact with Plaintiff, Mother met with the attorney/trustee and again revised her trust (Third Trust), this time removing Plaintiff as a beneficiary entirely and leaving everything to Sister and Sister’s children. At the time, Plaintiff was unaware that Mother had disinherited him.

¶6 Defendants finally allowed Mother to return to her home on the condition that Plaintiff vacate the basement apartment. Plaintiff complied, and Defendants moved into the basement apartment, a series of events that caused the relationship between Plaintiff and Defendants to become even more tense. After they moved into Mother’s house, Defendants continued to deny Plaintiff visits with Mother, and on multiple occasions they called the police when Plaintiff tried to visit Mother in her home. However, on each such occasion Plaintiff was allowed to see Mother after the officers spoke to her and confirmed that, as far as she was concerned, Plaintiff was welcome in her home.

¶7 Also during this time, Plaintiff claimed that his emotional and mental health went into decline. According to Plaintiff, not being able to contact Mother caused him "significant emotional distress" and "affected his work performance in such a way that his job was in jeopardy." Indeed, Plaintiff’s supervisor testified that, on one occasion, Plaintiff appeared so distraught at work that she feared he could not perform his job safely, so she sent him home for the day. In addition, his coworker and neighbor testified that his lighthearted personality disappeared and that he began to vocalize suicidal thoughts. Plaintiff testified that he ended up in the hospital on two occasions, and underwent "numerous therapy sessions" in an effort to restore his mental health. On one occasion, Plaintiff drew a bullet on a calendar, indicating the date on which he planned to commit suicide. Plaintiff’s neighbor was so concerned about Plaintiff that he called both the police and Defendants to inform them about Plaintiff’s suicidal comments. When the neighbor told Defendants about the calendar, Sister remarked, "Wouldn’t that make things easier?"

¶8 In January 2016, Mother slipped into a coma, but Defendants did not promptly notify Plaintiff about Mother’s declining condition; Plaintiff did not learn about her condition until three days later. Shortly thereafter, Mother passed away. Plaintiff first heard the news from Sister when he called to check on Mother. Although Plaintiff was at work only a few minutes away at the time of Mother’s passing, Defendants did not inform him when Mother had "only hours to live." Plaintiff testified that not being with Mother at the time of her death was traumatic—something "[t]hat’s going to mess with [him] the rest of [his] life."

¶9 After Mother’s passing, Plaintiff discovered that he had been completely disinherited under the Third Trust. Plaintiff then filed suit seeking to invalidate the Third Trust on the basis of undue influence. He also brought a claim against Defendants for intentional infliction of emotional distress (IIED). Following a three-day trial, Defendants’ counsel moved for a directed verdict as to Plaintiff’s undue influence claim. The trial court denied the motion and the case was sent to the jury, which found in favor of Plaintiff and invalidated the Third Trust on the basis of undue influence. The jury also found in favor of Plaintiff on his IIED claim, awarding him both non-economic and punitive damages. The jury found Defendants each separately liable to Plaintiff for $10,000 in compensatory non-economic damages, and in addition awarded Plaintiff $150,000—for which Defendants were jointly and severally liable—in punitive damages.

¶10 Following the trial, Defendants timely filed a motion, grounded in rule 60 of the Utah Rules of Civil Procedure, to vacate the judgment. On March 29, 2018, the court entered final judgment on the verdict, and a few days later, on April 8, 2018, the trial court issued a written minute entry denying the rule 60 motion. Then, on April 24, 2018, Defendants filed a notice of appeal (Notice), which states as follows:

The Appeal is taken from the Final Judgment entered March 29th, 2018, and against orders or rulings upon motions such that if the Final Judgment be reversed ... that necessarily shall be of same effect on any such irrevocably linked byproduct of the Judgment.

Defendants now appeal from the trial court’s entry of judgment on the jury verdict and from its post-judgment denial of their rule 60 motion.

ISSUES AND STANDARDS OF REVIEW

¶11 Defendants raise five issues for our review. The first two issues consist of challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence. First, Defendants contend that "the jury’s award of damages for [IIED should] be vacated" because it was not supported by sufficient evidence. Second, Defendants contend that "the jury’s award of punitive damages [should] be vacated because it was not based on sufficient evidence," and it "exceeds established limits for punitive damages awards." When considering an insufficiency of the evidence claim on appeal, "we do not weigh the evidence de novo." Water & Energy Sys. Tech., Inc. v. Keil , 2002 UT 32, ¶ 15, 48 P.3d 888 (quotation simplified). Rather, we view "the evidence in the light most favorable to the prevailing party," Crookston v. Fire Ins. Exch. , 817 P.2d 789, 799 (Utah 1991), and we reverse a jury’s verdict only when "the evidence presented at trial is so lacking that reasonable minds could not have reached the conclusion that the jury reached," Harding v. Bell , 2002 UT 108, ¶ 14, 57 P.3d 1093.

¶12 Third, Defendants contend that the trial court erred in denying their motion for a directed verdict on Plaintiff’s undue influence claim. We review a trial court’s decision on a motion for a directed verdict for correctness, and a trial court may enter a directed verdict "only if, after looking at the evidence and all reasonable inferences in a light most favorable to the nonmoving party," it "concludes that there is no competent evidence which would support a verdict in the nonmoving party’s favor." USA Power, LLC v. PacifiCorp , 2016 UT 20, ¶ 34, 372 P.3d 629 (quotation simplified).

¶13 Fourth, Defendants contend that the trial court erred in denying their rule 60 motion to vacate the judgment. Ordinarily, we review the denial of a motion to vacate a judgment for abuse of discretion. Bodell Constr. Co. v. Robbins , 2014 UT App 203, ¶ 5, 334 P.3d 1004. However, in this case, we lack jurisdiction to consider the merits of this issue, because Defendants did not specifically include it in their Notice. Jensen v. Intermountain Power Agency , 1999 UT 10, ¶ 7, 977 P.2d 474 ; see also Perea v. State , 2017 UT App 67, ¶ 6, 397 P.3d 770 (stating that "a ruling on a rule 60(b) motion culminates in a separate, appealable order" that usually "may not be included in an existing appeal because the issues raised in the appeal...