EDWARD J. LOCASCIO, APPELLANT,
v.
LEON SHARPE, AS PERSONAL REPRESENTATIVE, ETC., APPELLEE
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The court addressed remedies for a sole surviving son after his mother was murdered by his father and uncle, specifically concerning the distribution of the marital residence and other assets under the slayer statute.
The court held that the slayer statute, as interpreted in Capoccia v. Capoccia, severs survivorship rights but does not terminate the killer's interest in jointly held property, nor does it cause the killer's separate property to be forfeited to the victim's estate.
[1] A slayer statute precludes a convicted murderer from inheriting from the victim and severs any rights of survivorship the murderer held as a joint tenant with the victim.
[2] A constructive trust may be imposed on assets titled or assigned in the name of a murderer at the time of the victim's death.
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceFollowing the murder of Silvia LoCascio by her husband and brother-in-law, her sole surviving son, Edward J. LoCascio, sought to inherit the marital r…
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In these tragic cases, we address the remedies available to a sole surviving son following the murder of his mother by his father and uncle. The appellant in each case is Edward J. LoCascio (Son). The murder victim was Silvia LoCascio, and the co-conspirators convicted of first-degree murder are her then-husband1 Edward S. LoCascio and brother-in-law Michael LoCascio.
Silvia LoCascio died intestate, and the probate court appointed attorney Leon Sharpe as curator (and later as personal representative).2 Ultimately the Son and his mother’s estate obtained three judgments against Edward S. LoCascio:
(1) Under the “slayer statute,” section 732.802 Florida Statutes (2001), Edward S. LoCascio was precluded from inheriting any property from Silvia LoCascio, and her estate passed as if Edward S. LoCas-cio had predeceased her. In addition, any rights of survivorship that Edward S. Lo-Cascio held as a joint tenant with Silvia LoCascio at the date of her death were extinguished, and her interest was severed from that of Edward S. LoCascio.3
(2) In a separate circuit court lawsuit brought in the civil division, the estate obtained a final judgment of constructive trust against Edward S. LoCascio in November 2008. The constructive trust was declared over all assets of the decedent “that were at the time of her death titled or assigned in the name of Edward S. LoCascio.”4
(3) Additional final judgments in the civil lawsuit, entered on the same day as the constructive trust judgment, awarded Sil*1211via LoCascio’s estate $25,073,485.15 in compensatory damages and $50,000,000 in punitive damages, in each instance against Edward S. and Michael LoCascio, jointly and severally.
The Son commenced two appeals to this Court. In case no. 3D08-1711, the Son argues that the marital residence (the decedent’s and murderer’s homestead)5 passed in full to him as the mother’s sole heir. The Son bases this argument on the phrase in subsection 732.802(1), that “the estate of the decedent passes as if the killer had predeceased the decedent.” Had Edward S. LoCascio predeceased the decedent, the Son argues, then the decedent would have been vested with sole title to the residence at the time of her death, and that exclusive title would then have passed to the Son under Florida’s law of intestate succession.
We have previously rejected this argument. In Capoccia v. Capoccia, 505 So.2d 624 (Fla. 3d DCA 1987), this Court reconciled subsections (1) and (2) of the statute, explaining that “the express language of subsection (2) does not call for the complete termination of the killer’s interest in the property but merely the termination of the right of survivorship.” Id. at 624-25. Subsection (2) states that the killing “effects a severance of the interest of the decedent,” codifying a prior equitable doctrine that the property in such a case is “treated as if it had been formerly held as a tenancy in common.” Id. at 624.
In the second appeal, Case No. 3D09-118, the Son maintains that the then-personal representative, plaintiff in the civil lawsuit, was erroneously denied relief against Edward S. LoCascio’s property. Specifically, the personal representative sought a constructive trust over all marital property, including Edward S. LoCascio’s rights or interests in that property. Instead, the final judgment of constructive trust was limited to all assets of the decedent, including any such assets “titled or assigned in the name of the defendant Edward S. LoCascio.” The Son maintains that the significance of this alleged error— otherwise appearing moot because of the estate’s judgment liens in amounts tens of millions of dollars greater than the murderer’s known assets — is that the constructive trust over his father’s assets would relate back to the date of his mother’s death.6
The slayer statute is not, as presently -written, a forfeiture statute awarding all of a killer’s property to the estate of the victim. Nor does the pre-statutory equitable principle that “no one shall be permitted to profit by his own wrongdoing” include any such forfeiture of the killer’s separate property. Capoccia, 505 So.2d at 624. Accordingly, we find no error in the limitation imposed by the trial judge in the final judgment of constructive trust against Edward S. LoCascio.7
*1212In both appeals, we conclude that the trial court correctly interpreted and applied applicable law. The judgments below are affirmed.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
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LoCASCIO v. The Est. OF Silvia M. LoCASCIO, 78 So. 3d 573 (Fla. 3d DCA 2011)
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Carlton Fields, P.A. v. LoCASCIO, 59 So. 3d 246 (Fla. 3d DCA 2011)…n recording the amount owed Carlton Fields in a final judgment and lien. The orders subordinating judgment are therefore reversed. . § 732.802, Fla. Stat. (2001). The Slayer Statute claims were addressed here in a prior appeal, LoCascio v. Sharpe, 23 So. 3d 1209 (Fla. 3d DCA 2009). . The Son does not question the hours billed, the hourly rate, the costs charged, or the total billings. These topics could have been, but were not, questioned at the hearing on the motion to subordinate the Carlton Fields judgm…
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Carlton Fields, P.A. v. Locascio, 81 So. 3d 611 (Fla. 3d DCA 2012)
Authorities Cited
- Serge Taieb v. Pierre-Levy, 505 So. 2d 624 (Fla. 3d DCA 1987)
- Santo J. Capoccia, Jr. v. Capoccia, 505 So. 2d 624 (Fla. 3d DCA 1987)