Petition to remove a personal representative (PR) & successor trustee; Whether a settlement agreement should be set aside due to lack of notice or participation in the mediation; MCR 5.120; The Estates & Protected Individuals Code (MCL 700.1101 et seq.); MCL 700.7814; MCL 700.3705(d); An agreement to settle a lawsuit as a contract; Walbridge Aldinger Co. v. Walcon Corp.; Whether the agreement should be set aside due to lack of mutual assent; Angelo DiPonio Equip. Co. v. State Dep’t of State Hwys. & Transp.; Meeting of the minds as to all essential elements; Siegel v. Spinny; Consideration; Yoches v. City of Dearborn; Sands Appliance Serv., Inc. v. Wilson; Fraud; Hord v. Environmental Research Inst. of MI; Impossibility of performance; Roberts v. Farmers Ins. Exch.; Rogers Plaza, Inc. v. SS Kresge Co.; Interpretation of an account beneficiary form; A non-probate transfer on death account; MCL 700.6101(1)(a); MCL 700.6309; Motion for reconsideration; MCR 2.119(F)(3); Palpable defined; Stamp v. Mill St. Inn

Holding that the probate court erred in finding that appellant-Barbara Brown was bound by the Settlement Agreement (SA) given that she did not receive notice of or participate in the mediation, the court reversed the order granting appellee-PR’s (Randall Brown) petition for entry of a final order dismissing the petition and the case pursuant to the SA as it related to Barbara. It vacated the portions of the order providing that the SA was binding and enforceable as to her, and remanded. However, the court affirmed in all other respects, concluding that appellants failed to show the SA should be set aside as to appellant-Farmer. The parties’ father, testator Meddie Allen Brown, “devised for the assets of his trust to be distributed among them. Randall was appointed” PR of the estate and the trust’s successor trustee. Farmer petitioned the probate court in propria persona to remove Randall as PR and trustee. The probate court “dismissed the appellants’ petition for removal and approved closure of the estate based on” the SA. It found that “Barbara was bound by the actions of fiduciary Randall under MCR 5.120 where she had not previously intervened in mediation or appeared for any other court proceedings.” The court held that the probate court erred. The only notice Barbara was sent about the mediation was a 2/22/17 letter from the probate court to all interested parties with the Pre-Trial Scheduling Conference Order attached. Randall relied on this “as having fulfilled the requirements of MCR 5.120.” However, this letter “was sent from the probate court and not the fiduciary as was required by MCR 5.120. It was not followed by any other notice from the fiduciary to keep the interested parties reasonably informed. The court’s notice did not advise the interested parties of their rights to intervene.” In the absence of the notices required by MCR 5.120, Barbara was not bound. The court noted there is “no temporal requirement in the rule or in case law” as to when an interested person has to intervene. Barbara also was not bound because “neither she nor any person with authority to represent her signed” the SA. But the probate court did not err in refusing to set it aside as to Farmer on the basis of lack of mutual assent, or in interpreting a beneficiary form to find that an account’s proceeds were payable only to Randall.