Kuenne v. Loffler

Per Curiam : On 29 March 1970, Raymond E. Kuenne died intestate, domiciled in Charles County, Maryland, leaving his two sisters, Lillian Kuenne and Margaret Loffler, as his only next of kin and heirs at law, and an estate appraised at some $1,350,000. 1 Three days after Mr. Kuenne’s death, Mrs. Loffler, a resident of Charles County, qualified as personal representative of her brother’s estate. Some four months later, Miss Kuenne, a resident of the District of Columbia, by petition filed in the Orphans’ Court for Charles County, sought to qualify as a personal representative jointly with Mrs. Loffler. From an order of the orphans’ court denying her petition, Miss Kuenne appealed to the Circuit Court for Charles County. At her request, the case was removed to the Circuit Court for Calvert County, which affirmed the denial.

This appeal followed. Mrs. Loffler has moved to dismiss the appeal, arguing —and we think quite correctly — that an order granting letters of administration to one member of an equally entitled class to the exclusion of others lies within the sound discretion of the orphans’ court and that from such a determination no appeal will lie, Langfelder v. Langfelder, 18 9 Md. 88 , 93, 54 A. 2d 312 (1947) ; Dorsey v. Dorsey, 140 Md. 167, 170 , 116 A. 915 (1922) ; Kailer v. Kailer, 92 Md. 147, 149 , 48 A. 712 (1900) ; Bowie v. Bowie, 73 Md. 232, 235, 20 A. 916 (1890) ; 1 Sykes, ⁴⁷⁰ Probate Law and Practice § 245, at 254 (1956), in the absence of proof that the court failed to exercise sound discretion, Horton v. Horton, 157 Md. 127 , 145 A. 355 (1929). Maryland Code (1957,1969 Repl. Vol.) Art. 93, § 5-104 (c) provides: “Appointment within class. — When there are several eligible persons in a class entitled to letters, the court or register may grant letters to one of them, or to more than one of them, as necessary or convenient for the proper administration of the estate; . . . .” While the cases on which Mrs. Loffler relies dealt with § 19 of Art. 93 of Code (1957) and its progenitors, it was not the intention of the draftsmen of Ch. 3, § 1 of the Laws of 1969, which recodified our law relating to decedents’ estates, to alter the prior case law, see penultimate paragraph of the Comment appended to § 5-104.

Miss Kuenne does not allege an abuse of discretion, since she was not denied a hearing as was the case in Horton, supra, but rather, says: “. . . [S]he is qualified to be a personal