Request By:
Mr. Randolph Noe
Attorney at Law
237 South Fifth Street
Louisville, Kentucky 40202
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
Your request for an opinion relates to the jurisdiction of the district court in probate matters.
KRS 24A.120(1)(b) and (2) reads:
"(1) District court shall have exclusive jurisdiction in:
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"(b) Matters involving probate, except matters contested in an adversary proceeding. Such adversary proceeding shall be filed in circuit court in accordance with the Kentucky Rules of Civil Procedure and shall not be considered an appeal.
"(2) Papers relating to uncontested probate matters shall be filed in the office of the county clerk. In the event a probate matter is contested, the Supreme Court shall by rule provide for filing duplicate papers in circuit and county clerks' offices."
Your questions were stated as follows in your letter:
"Thus, under the statute, it would seem that simply an objection to the probate of a will in the district court hearing on the same would cause the Court to lose jurisdiction with the result that the will could not be admitted to probate, the propounder's sole recourse then being one of filing an original action in the Circuit Court.
"Likewise, it would seem that an objection by an interested party to the application of one for appointment as administrator would work the same result i.e. the district court would lose jurisdiction to make the appointment.
"In other words, it appears that the statute acts to foreclose any hearing on such matters by the District Court."
Since the district court has exclusive jurisdiction of uncontested probate matters, and since a contest of probate matters can only be filed in the circuit court, if at the time a will and related papers are offered and tendered with the district court no adversary proceeding in such estate has been instituted in the circuit court, the district court may proceed to exercise its jurisdiction. Thus a party cannot come into the district court objecting to the probate of the will or threatening to file litigation in circuit court. Such adversary party will have to file a suit in circuit court contesting such proposed will. Thus a will could be admitted to probate by district court so long as there is no pending adversary litigation in circuit court. The district court's jurisdiction of probate matters attaches and continues until such time, if at all, adversary litigation of such matters is filed in the circuit court. The lines of jurisdiction are rather clearly laid out in the statute. The same principle would apply to an objection to an appointment as administrator.
In other words, an interested party cannot simply come into district court and defeat the continuation of that court's jurisdiction by merely informing the court that he intends to contest the matter in circuit court. The only thing that will terminate the district court's jurisdiction is the actual filing of adversary litigation in circuit court.
Statutes must be given a practical interpretation to carry out the manifest purpose.