Probate Jurisdiction for Creditors' Claims

• Publication year: 2000
• Pages: 57
• Citation: Vol. 29 No. 5 Pg. 57

29 Colo.Law. 57 Colorado Lawyer 2000.

2000, May, Pg. 57. Probate Jurisdiction for Creditors' Claims

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57

Vol. 29, No. 5, Pg. 57

The Colorado Lawyer
May 2000
Vol. 29, No. 5 [Page 57]

Specialty Law Columns
Estate and Trust Forum
Probate Jurisdiction for Creditors' Claims
by David Steinhoff, Andrea Faley

It is not uncommon for an opposing party to die before a tort, contract, or other action against him or her can be filed or completed. Once the opposing party has died, a claimant is faced with determining how and where to proceed with a claim against the decedent?s estate.1 The procedures on how to present a claim were addressed in an article that appeared in this column in May 1998.2 However, where to litigate a disputed claim is a separate issue

Probate courts can hear all "probate matters," but the law is vague regarding what constitutes a probate matter and the scope of the jurisdiction of the probate courts. This article discusses jurisdictional issues involved in litigating a creditor?s claim against a decedent?s estate

Review of Procedures

To present a claim against a decedent?s estate, the claimant must notify the decedent?s personal representative. The claimant must present a claim within the requisite time limit by filing a claim in the probate court, notifying the personal representative in writing, or filing suit against the personal representative.3 If the claimant elects to file notice in the probate court or gives written notice to the personal representative but the personal representative denies the claim, the claimant has sixty days to file a petition for allowance in the probate court or start a proceeding against the personal representative in another court.4

Filing a petition in the probate court is appropriate when it seems likely that the probate court will have jurisdiction over the claim. Although several sections of the Colorado Revised Statutes ("CRS") indicate that courts other than the probate court may hear claims,5 the CRS does not indicate when this is appropriate.6

Colorado Constitution And Statutes

The Colorado Constitution and the Colorado Probate Code ("Code") have provisions dealing with probate jurisdiction, but none adequately define the scope of probate matters that give rise to such jurisdiction. Article VI of the Colorado Constitution contains two general provisions relating to probate jurisdiction. The first merely states that district courts are courts of general jurisdiction and have original jurisdiction in all probate cases.7 The second delineates, in broad terms, the subject-matter jurisdiction for the Denver Probate Court, granting this court "exclusive original jurisdiction in all matters of probate."8 Neither provision incorporates the substance of the other or defines "matters of probate." For greater detail, it is necessary to look to statutes

Unfortunately, the Code does little to clarify the subject-matter jurisdiction of probate courts. The Code merely states, "[t]he [probate] court has jurisdiction over all subject matter vested by article VI of the state constitution and by articles 1 to 10 of title 13, CRS."9 However, a look at these provisions leaves much unanswered. Of the ten articles of the Code that are referenced, only one provision addresses probate court subject-matter jurisdiction?that of the Denver Probate Court.10

Denver is the only judicial district that has a separate probate court. A 1965 amendment to the Colorado Constitution transferred probate jurisdiction from county courts to district courts and created the Denver Probate Court.11 The legislature also enacted a statute detailing the jurisdiction of this court. The statute, in pertinent part, gives the Denver Probate Court authority to:

(3) . . . determine every legal and equitable question arising in connection with decedents? . . . estates, so far as the question concerns any person who is before the court by reason of any asserted right in any of the property of the estate or by reason of any asserted obligation to the estate including, without limiting the...