Taylor v. Young

The caveator failed to show that an attorney appointed by the probate court pursuant to O.C.G.A. § 15-9-13 a lacked jurisdiction to consider the caveat.

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Following the denial of his motion for new trial, James Lee Taylor, III, appeals the probate court’s order denying his caveat to Senell Marie Young’s petition for letters of administration for the estate of Young’s mother, Senell Mary James. See OCGA § 53-6-21 Revised Probate Code of 1998. Taylor contends the probate court lacked jurisdiction to rule on a contested matter and erred in finding he was not the common law husband of the decedent, as he claimed in his caveat to the petition. Finding no error, we affirm.

1. Taylor contends the probate court exceeded its jurisdiction in adjudicating the contested issue of whether he was the common law husband of the decedent. The probate court held an evidentiary hearing on Taylor’s caveat on June 14, 2000, with Pinkie T. Toomer, an attorney and chief clerk of the probate court, acting as the hearing officer. Judge F. E. Propst of the Probate Court of Fulton County appointed Toomer to exercise the court’s jurisdiction in the matter pursuant to OCGA § 15-9-13 a.1 The order disposing of Taylor’s caveat, however, indicated that Toomer was “exercising the jurisdiction of the judge of the Probate Court as provided by OCGA § 15-9-36 c.” As Taylor correctly pointed out at the hearing on his motion for new trial, OCGA § 15-9-36 c 1 authorizes the chief clerk to act as a hearing officer but only as to uncontested matters.2 In the order denying Taylor’s motion for new trial, Toomer corrected as a “typographical error” the statutory reference to the source of the source of jurisdiction and followed her signature with the language “exercising the jurisdiction of the judge of the Probate Court as provided by OCGA § 15-9-13 a.”

Taylor v. Young

The caveator failed to show that an attorney appointed by the probate court pursuant to O.C.G.A. § 15-9-13 a lacked jurisdiction to consider the caveat.

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