Removal of party as estate administrator now a final, appealable order in Ohio

Jessie J. Fitzgerald Jr. was removed as administrator of theestate of Andre Sneed. Sarah McHugh replaced him. Fitzgerald Jr. appealed hisremoval as administrator, and McHugh filed a motion to dismiss on the groundsthat removal was not appealable until the estate was closed.

The Ohio Appellate Court said in In reEstate of Sneed (Ohio App. 6 Dist.,2006) that it was an appealableorder.

The issueof whether a ruling on a motion to remove a party as the administrator of anestate is final and appealable at the time it is entered has a long andtortured history in Ohio.

(…analysisof previous, conflicting cases…)

In considering all of the above, weare persuaded that the approach taken by the Seventh, Tenth, and EleventhDistricts [which supported immediate appeal of removal] is sound and morerealistic than our previous holding [in two cases saying the opposite]. Byfocusing on the loss of a person’s opportunity to be the executor of an estate,the courts in Geanangel, Nardiello, and Meloni acknowledge that such a loss cannot be remedied.

Our focus in Gannett and Packo on theeconomic impact of a decision as to who will administer an estate, and theconclusion that any mistakes or mishandling of estate assets could be remediedafter the estate closed, is theoretically true, but in practice not realistic.

Once an estate has beenadministered, all of the decisions about how to value, invest, dispose of, anddistribute the assets of the estate will have been made. Second guessing thosedecisions after the fact is generally futile, and even if mishandling can beproven, trying to recover the assets may be even more futile. Thus, we overruleour prior determination that an order ruling on a motion to remove an executorfrom a probate estate is not final and appealable and now hold that pursuant toR.C. 2505.02(B)(4), such an order is final and appealable.