When a family fights over a guardianship for years, most people assume the fight ends when the loved one dies. The person who needed protecting is gone. What is left for the court to do?
Quite a bit, as it turns out. A ward’s death ends the guardian’s authority over the person, but it does not shut down the court case. That difference matters when a new lawsuit grows out of the old family dispute. If the guardianship case is still open, the probate court may be able to pull that new lawsuit into its own courtroom.
That is what happened in In re Guardianship of Fairley, No. 20-0328, 650 S.W.3d 372 (Tex. Mar. 4, 2022). After the ward died, his daughter filed a wrongful-death suit in district court. The probate court transferred it to itself. The Supreme Court of Texas had to decide whether the probate court still had the power to do that once the ward was gone.
A Decade-Long Fight Over James Fairley
The dispute was between James Fairley’s wife, Mauricette, and his daughter, Juliette. It started in Bexar County in 2011, when James was 81 and Juliette claimed he needed a guardian. A guardian ad litem decided he didn’t, and that case was closed. Juliette filed again the next year, asking to be appointed his permanent guardian. She later agreed to nonsuit that application in exchange for promises about James’s care and her access to him. The probate court dismissed it in September 2014.
One month later, Juliette took her father from his San Antonio assisted-living facility to New York, where she lived. Mauricette asked the Bexar County probate court to appoint her as James’s temporary guardian. She alleged Juliette had removed him from his home and tricked him into signing powers of attorney, which Juliette used to take money from his bank account. Juliette filed her own guardianship petition in New York. After a hearing on December 1, 2014, the New York court appointed Mauricette and a court evaluator as special temporary co-guardians for the limited purpose of bringing James back to Texas. It also revoked the powers of attorney in Juliette’s favor.
On December 8, 2014, Mauricette applied in Bexar County to be James’s permanent guardian. She served as temporary guardian for most of 2015. After a November 2015 hearing, the probate court found James “totally incapacitated” and appointed Mauricette guardian of his person. The applications sought guardianship of James’s person only, not his estate.
Juliette appealed and lost. She then filed a mandamus petition in the court of appeals and lost again. In June 2018 she filed a mandamus petition in the Supreme Court of Texas, arguing every order since September 2014 was void because her father had been served by private process servers instead of a sheriff or constable. James died in December 2018. The Supreme Court denied that petition in January 2019.
After her father’s death, Juliette sued Mauricette and Mauricette’s other daughter, Dorothy, in Bexar County district court for wrongful death. She also asked the court to stop the embalming or cremation of James’s body. On Mauricette and Dorothy’s motion, the probate court transferred the wrongful-death suit into the guardianship case. Mauricette and Dorothy then moved to dismiss Juliette’s claims under Rule 91a. Juliette responded with a motion under the Texas Citizens Participation Act asking the court to vacate the transfer. The probate court denied her motion, and the San Antonio Court of Appeals affirmed.
In the Supreme Court, Juliette argued that once James died, there was no longer a guardianship case for the probate court to transfer anything into. Mauricette argued that James’s death made the whole appeal moot.
When Does a Guardianship Proceeding Begin and End?
To understand the court’s answer, we first have to separate two things that sound alike. A guardianship of the person is the guardian’s legal authority over the ward: where the ward lives, what medical care he gets, and similar decisions. A guardianship proceeding is the court case in which that authority is created, supervised, and eventually wrapped up. The Estates Code defines a “guardianship proceeding” broadly as “a matter or proceeding related to a guardianship or any other matter covered by this title.” Tex. Est. Code § 1002.015.
In a county with a statutory probate court, like Bexar County, that court has original jurisdiction over guardianship proceedings. Tex. Est. Code § 1022.002(c). The statute also says how long a single proceeding lasts: “From the filing of the application for the appointment of a guardian of the estate or person, or both, until the guardianship is settled and closed under this chapter,” it is one proceeding for jurisdictional purposes. Tex. Est. Code § 1022.002(d). So the case starts with the application and ends when the guardianship is settled and closed, not before.
Settling and closing is a formal step. Section 1202.001 lists the ward’s death among the events that require a guardianship to be “settled and closed” (with an extra condition when the ward was married), and Section 1204.001 sets out the procedures. Until that happens, the guardian still has work to do. Before a guardianship is closed on the ward’s death, the guardian may, with court approval, make funeral arrangements and pay funeral expenses and other debts out of the ward’s estate. Tex. Est. Code § 1204.051. A guardian of the person must also deliver the deceased ward’s property to the personal representative of the estate or another person entitled to it. Tex. Est. Code § 1204.108(a). None of that could happen under court supervision if the case vanished the moment the ward died.
The other piece is the transfer power. A statutory probate court judge, on motion of a party or a person interested in the guardianship, may transfer to that court from a district, county, or statutory court “a cause of action that is a matter related to a guardianship proceeding pending in the statutory probate court,” and consolidate it with the guardianship. Tex. Est. Code § 1022.007(a). The key word is “pending.” No pending guardianship proceeding, no transfer.
How the Court Decided Fairley
The court first rejected Mauricette’s mootness argument. A case is moot when there is no longer a live controversy. Here there was one: if Juliette was right, her wrongful-death suit would go back to the district court. As the court put it, the appeal still presented the question of “whether the district court is the proper court to adjudicate her wrongful-death suit.” James’s death did not make that question go away.
On the main issue, the court agreed with half of Juliette’s premise. Citing Zipp v. Wuemling, 218 S.W.3d 71, 74 (Tex. 2007), it said: “It is axiomatic that, with the death of the ward, the guardianship of the person must end.” But the court then drew the line that decided the case: “But the guardianship proceeding does not automatically terminate on the ward’s death.” Instead, the probate court’s jurisdiction continues until it settles and closes the guardianship and discharges the guardian.
That rule is not new. The court relied on Easterline v. Bean, 49 S.W.2d 427, 428 (Tex. 1932), which held that a ward’s death ends the probate court’s jurisdiction over the guardianship “save and except that the guardianship shall be immediately settled and closed, and the guardian discharged.” The court also pointed to Sections 1204.051 and 1204.108(a) as proof that the Legislature expects guardians to keep acting for a deceased ward until the case is closed.
Applying that here was simple. Everyone agreed the probate court had not settled and closed the Fairley guardianship when it transferred the wrongful-death suit. So there was still a “guardianship proceeding pending” under Section 1022.007(a). Juliette did not separately argue that her wrongful-death suit was unrelated to the guardianship. Her only argument was that the case ended when James died, and that argument failed.
The court did add a caution in a footnote. A probate court deciding whether to transfer a related case under Section 1022.007 should consider the ward’s death and the coming closure of the guardianship. It should also consider whether there is a pending or soon-to-be-filed probate proceeding that the case should go into instead. In other words, the power exists, but the court should think about whether the guardianship is the right home for the case.
The court also rejected Juliette’s service argument. It held that Section 1051.051, not Section 1051.103, controls who may serve a proposed ward. Service on James in Texas by a private process server did not meet that statute, which calls for a sheriff or constable when a person is served in person in Texas. The record also did not show the New York process server was “disinterested.” But James was personally served both times, and his court-appointed attorney ad litem filed an answer and took part in the hearings without objecting. That was a general appearance, which waived the technical defects. None of the guardianship orders were void. Two justices dissented on this service issue.
The Takeaway
Fairley makes the line clear. The ward’s death ends the guardianship of the person right away. The guardianship proceeding keeps going until the court settles and closes it. While it is open, the probate court keeps its jurisdiction, including its power to pull related lawsuits into the guardianship case.
For families, that has practical effects. If you plan to sue over something that grew out of a guardianship fight, such as a wrongful-death claim or a claim about how the guardian handled things, expect that the case may end up in the probate court that handled the guardianship. Filing in district court does not guarantee it stays there. For guardians, the job does not end at the funeral. You still have to account for and deliver the ward’s property and get the guardianship formally settled and closed before you are discharged.
And if you think there is a defect in how a proposed ward was served, raise it early. The court made clear that a technical service problem nobody objected to at the time will not undo years of orders after the fact.
Do you need help with a probate matter in Austin or the surrounding area? We are Austin probate attorneys. We help clients work through the probate process. Call today for a free confidential consultation, 512-273-7444.
Our Austin Probate Attorneys provide a full range of probate services to our clients, including helping with guardianship proceedings, closing a guardianship after the ward dies, and the lawsuits that can grow out of a guardianship dispute. Affordable rates, fixed fees, and payment plans are available. We provide step-by-step instructions, guidance, checklists, and more for completing the probate process. We have years of combined experience that we can use to support and guide you with probate and estate matters. Call us today for a FREE consultation.
Disclaimer
The content of this website is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal advice. The information presented may not apply to your situation and should not be acted upon without consulting a qualified probate attorney. We encourage you to seek the advice of a competent attorney with any legal questions you may have.
