In re Probate Appeal of Buckingham

Syllabus

The plaintiffs appealed to the trial court from the decree of the Probate Court dismissing their action contesting the will of the defendant's decedent, which had named the parties as beneficiaries and the defen- dant as the executor of the decedent's estate. Following the decedent's death, the defendant filed with the Probate Court a petition to admit the will to probate. After the deadline to object to the admission of the will had passed without any objection having been filed, the Probate Court issued a decree admitting the will to probate. The plaintiffs, who had been served with notice by the Probate Court, did not appeal from that decree; however, 137 days after it issued, they filed two motions with the Probate Court, which sought, in effect, the decedent's medical records to contest the will. In response, the defendant filed a motion to dismiss the plaintiffs' will contest for lack of subject matter jurisdic- tion. The Probate Court thereafter issued a decree dismissing the action, from which the plaintiffs appealed to the trial court, alleging claims of fraud. The trial court subsequently granted the defendant's motion to dismiss and rendered judgment dismissing the appeal, concluding that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction because, inter alia, the plaintiffs lacked statutory authority to raise their claims outside of a timely appeal from the original decree admitting the will to probate. On the plaintiffs' appeal to this court, held that the trial court properly dismissed the probate appeal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, as that court had no statutory authority to set aside the decree of the Probate Court admitting the decedent's will to probate, and, therefore, it lacked jurisdic- tion to hear the plaintiffs' claims of fraud, which directly attacked the decree: because, in probate appeals, the trial court exercises the same authority as the Probate Court, and the Probate Court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to set aside its prior probate