Coastal
Post Online
June, 2003
Ice Water In Their Veins-The Estate of Ellis Bell
By Terri Alvillar
Ellis Bell was a Mill Valley fixture for over 50 years. After serving in
the Navy in the mid-1940s, Ellis established Bell's Clock Shop where he
repaired timepieces and made custom jewelry. He and Alma, his wife of 62 years,
lived together in their rambling Blithedale Canyon house. Alma spent her last
year at Hillhaven Convalescent Center where she died in 1993. Ellis and Alma
had no children.
Ellis, himself, was a timekeeper. He
maintained a detailed DayTimer of his activities, and an oral diary on tape.
Each day's events were recorded from the time he awoke; his meals, visits from
friends, TV shows he watched, and phone conversations. The last entry in Ellis'
DayTimer was at 8:30am on January 3, 2000. His body was found two days later by
next door neighbor, Jackie Schultz. He was 93.
For six years before his death,
Jackie had kept an eye on Ellis and ran errands for him. Ellis' activities
could be observed from the living room of Jackie's house next door.
Lois St. Sure is the Chief Deputy
Public Administrator for Marin County. On January 7, 2000, Lois went to Ellis'
house to secure it. She found the house "in terrible condition, unheated,
a tarp on the 2nd floor to protect the lower floors from rain, large bottles of
toxic materials used in clock repair...we were appalled...it was dusty, dirty,
cold, and full of rubbish." In spite of the overall condition of the
house, Ellis' belongings were very well organized.
Mr. Bell died intestate (without
having executed a will). Lois St. Sure began searching for his legal heirs
according to California's laws of intestate succession. Ellis Bell was one of
six children born to Ingeborg and Willis Bell. Tragedy struck the family in
1915 when the Bells' one month old daughter, Dorris, died and one month later,
Ingeborg died. Ellis was five years old at the time, and his younger brother
Willis was 18 months of age. The elder Willis became estranged from the family
after his wife died, and his children were left in Rackerby, California, to
manage for themselves. All the brothers
entered the Navy. To support herself, sister Isabelle became a prostitute. All
the siblings maintained contact throughout their lives. Ellis' brother, Willis,
lived in Palo Alto from 1969 until he died in 1987.
Lois St. Sure contacted Ellis Bell's
nephew, Mark, a university professor in Utah. She advised Mark that his uncle
had died and asked him to provide documentation of his family ties. Mark
complied then called a family conference. It was decided that his sister
Charlotte would administer the estate because she lived closest to Mill Valley,
in Southern California. The family traveled to Mill Valley in February 2000 and
arranged for a memorial ceremony and burial at sea for their uncle.
Charlotte was a single mother of two.
She took a leave of absence from her full-time employment to administer her
uncle's estate, a job that was expected to take 6-8 months or a year at the
most. Charlotte's fiancee, John, began working overtime to compensate for their
lost income which was expected to be a temporary situation.
Mark Bell described the condition of
his uncle's home upon the family's arrival in Mill Valley: "All of us were
appalled at the filth we witnessed in Ellis home. Thick cobwebs came down into
the bed where our uncle slept and died. There was a warning sign from the gas
company outside about a gas leak inside...toxic waste had been
present...semi-stray cats lived downstairs...the overall impression was one of
dust, dirt, dank, cat excrement and unsanitary conditions. Raw honey from a bee
hive was still heavily dripping down the ceiling and walls..." More than
one cat carcass was discovered in the basement, the windows were sealed shut,
and a match was found jammed into the stove's pilot.
A video showed the paneling and
cabinets were caked with tar from cigarette smoke. Hundreds of clocks and clock
parts seemed to fill every room. Two rooms and a porch used for clock repairs
were jam-packed with materials, files, cans and drawers full of thousands of
clock parts. Vases and pitchers on the kitchen counter (which was barely
visible) were covered in thick grime and dust. The two bathrooms were filthy.
Ceilings and walls were heavily damaged from a leaking roof. Realtor, Bob
Chapman, estimated the cost to clean the house to an adequate level to show
prospective buyers would be $50,000. to $75,000. In order to save the estate
money, Charlotte and her siblings did most of the work themselves.
Four months after Ellis died, his
family was shocked when they learned neighbor Jackie Schultz, 60, had filed a
lawsuit against the estate in Marin County Superior Court asserting that Ellis
had promised her his entire estate in exchange for taking care of him. They
were stunned by the news.
Attorney David W. Raub represented
Schultz. Raub argued that his client had an oral contract with Mr. Bell. Judge
Lynn Duryee agreed, imposed a constructive trust, and awarded the entire estate
to Schultz. The family lost its appeal of Duryee's decision on June 11, 2001.
The appellate decision states in part "Although Bell failed to make a will
in her favor, the trial court found Schultz had sustained her cause of action
for quasi-specific performance of an oral agreement to make a will and
accordingly imposed a constructive trust on Bell's estate."
During the trial, plaintiffs called
social worker Judi Jensen as a witness. Jensen claimed to be "an
expert" on the value of in-home services. Jackie Schultz claimed she spent
1,284 hours helping Mr. Bell. Based on the wages assigned by Jensen, the total
value of Jackie's services was $11,848. In her July 24, 2000 deposition, Jackie
estimated the value of her work at $25.-$30./hour which totals $34,320. Ellis
Bell's estate was worth just under $1million.
Why did Jackie Schultz feel entitled
to Ellis Bell's estate? Schultz did not return phone calls for this article but
her deposition states "I believe he [Ellis] felt that I was family...he
told me that he trusted me...we spent numerous times sitting at his kitchen
table...I would take him grocery shopping or other errands...he felt I was the
one person that he trusted, and in return, since he had no family, he wanted to
leave me his entire estate." Schultz testified that she never asked to be
paid for her services.
Ellis' family's attorney John Rager
asked Jackie "Is the reason that you drove him around and took care of him
and watched over him based on the fact that he said he would give you his
estate?" She answered "Yes." Rager then asked "If he had
not indicated he was going to leave you the estate would you have done these
things?" Jackie said "No." Jackie testified she never admitted
that fact to Ellis but that she "cared deeply for him." No written
document whatsoever was produced in the trial to support Jackie's assertion
that Ellis intended to give her his estate in exchange for running errands for
him.
Ellis' oral diary reveals a mentally
sharp and vivacious man right up until he died. Between the years of 1992 and
2000, attorney Gregory C. Dyer prepared both a living trust and a will for
Ellis to sign but he signed neither. Trial evidence shows Dyer called Ellis
every six months or so to follow up on the documents. Numerous times Dyer asked
Ellis who his beneficiary would be. Ellis repeatedly said he hadn't made up his
mind. As of two weeks prior to his death, Ellis told Dyer he still hadn't made
up his mind. According to Dyer's January 30, 2001 deposition, not once during
that eight year period did Ellis Bell mention the name of Jackie Schultz. Dyer
said "I wanted a name...I couldn't get a name." Dyer said Ellis
didn't trust anybody, and "you know, he was a cagey old guy."
At the time of Ellis Bell's death,
Greg Dyer and Jackie's attorney David Raub had adjacent suites at 103 E.
Blithedale, Mill Valley. They had a financial relationship. Raub was Dyer's
tenant for seven years. When Mr. Raub was asked how he came to represent Jackie
Schultz, he said he couldn't remember; he thought Jackie's daughter had
recommended him. In her deposition, Jackie stated she called Dyer to let him
know Ellis had died and "it was a shame that I knew Mr. Bell was going to
leave me his estate but I knew that he had not had an opportunity to do
that."
The court ruled that Ellis Bell's
family would be "unjustly enriched" were they to inherit under
California's laws of intestate succession. In a 12-page letter to the court,
Mark Bell explained the family's experience, and detailed the hundreds of hours
they spent, settling their uncle's estate: "When we learned that we were
the legal heirs to our uncle's estate we all felt that with the death of
Ingeborg's last child, some kind of justice and closure was occurring following
all the unfortunate family circumstances. For whatever reasons, Ellis refused
to say very much about his personal life and family to neighbors or friends.
The family story still affects us and, most of all, binds us together in ways that
neighbors have no right to evaluate or judge."
"If anything, these laws
[intestate succession] must have been designed to spare families the nightmare
we have been through. They must exist, and be enforced in order to give some
kind of predictability and order to the process of settling an estate when a
close relative dies...the unforeseen lawsuit for which none of us were prepared
emotionally or in terms of available time and energy, degenerated into a
terrible burden on our family."
A very close friend of Ellis' since
the 1950s describes him as "proud to be an Irishman...those darn Irish
records would be loudly blazing, stubborn as the dickens and he didn't trust
anybody. His favorite thing to do was tell stories about how people ripped him
off...said people were always trying to get his money...he wouldn't let anybody
get his estate." When told that Ellis' estate was awarded to Jackie
Schultz, he remarked "Boy did she screw him! She didn't take care of
him-he took care of himself!"
Agonizing over how to pay for Alma's
convalescent home stay in 1992, Ellis recorded "We thought we had things
pretty well under control as planned, and with our combined Medicare payments,
and assistance from our CD investments we could go on to the end comfortably
and much above the poverty level. But what now?...there must be someone out
there that doesn't have ice water in his veins and would leave one with at
least one arm and a leg who has the knowledge and experience to advise me of a
workable plan to follow. Numerous plans have been suggested, like the setting
up of a living trust...Each plan seems to have its shortcomings for me but a
windfall for some smart, unscrupulous attorney. The only advice I have on
ending this dissertation is, when you look down that long, long road and the
end, turn around and run like hell the other way."