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Original File Date: October 15, 2010 Last Updated: November 22, 2010

No. 103,047 IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF KANSAS IN THE MATTER OF THE ESTATE OF HELEN M. HEIMAN, DECEASED.

SYLLABUS BY THE COURT 1. Jurisdiction typically is a question of law over which the appellate courts exercise unlimited review.

2. Subject matter jurisdiction refers to the authority of a particular court to hear a type of case or dispute.

3. District courts are courts of general jurisdiction and have subject matter jurisdiction over probate proceedings.

4. Courts should treat petitions, motions, or other papers for what they are based on their substance rather than how they are captioned or titled.

5. A petition incorrectly captioned and filed in a probate proceeding under Chapter 59 when it actually is a civil action under Chapter 60 should not be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction; the plaintiff should be permitted to amend and restyle the pleading.

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6. The right to a jury trial in a civil case usually depends upon the relief a plaintiff seeks unless a statute specifically permits a jury trial.

7. Setoff is an equitable remedy.

Appeal from Nemaha District Court; JOHN L. WEINGART, judge. Opinion filed October 15, 2010. Reversed and remanded with directions.

Jason E. Brinegar, of Galloway, Wiegers & Brinegar, P.A., of Marysville, for appellant Carol L. Heiman.

William C. O'Keefe, of Seneca, for appellee Maurice Heiman.

Before MALONE, P.J., HILL and ATCHESON, JJ.

ATCHESON, J.: Thirty years ago, Helen M. Heiman sold a piece of land to her son Maurice Heiman on an installment contract. Maurice made some payments. Helen died about 3 years ago. Carol Leo Heiman, another son, is the executor of his mother's estate and, in that capacity, filed a petition as part of the probate proceeding in Nemaha County to recover the balance due from Maurice on the land sale. Everybody seems to agree Maurice still owes some money. They part ways over how much. But that issue--the substantive disagreement between the Estate and Maurice about money--is not before us. It remains unaddressed and unresolved. Instead, the parties have been mired in an entirely needless dispute over "jurisdiction." At Maurice's request, the district court dismissed the probate petition on the notion the court lacked subject matter jurisdiction because the action should have been brought as a civil suit under Chapter 60 rather than in the probate proceeding under Chapter 59. On behalf of the Estate, Carol has appealed the dismissal. We decide the propriety of that ruling today. We reverse and remand with directions that 2

the action be reinstated and Carol be given leave to file an amended petition restyling the pleading as one under Chapter 60.

This legal dispute has been sucked into a procedural vortex because the parties argued outdated case authority to the district judge and failed to appreciate the sweeping changes court unification made to the Kansas judicial system, particularly with respect to jurisdiction. In short, unification provided the district courts with broad jurisdictional authority to hear all types of cases and eliminated the strict jurisdictional barriers that channeled probate matters into specialized probate courts with exclusive jurisdiction to decide those cases. Since unification, district courts have had the jurisdiction to hear both Chapter 60 civil cases and Chapter 59 probate matters. The district court, therefore, had no reason or legal basis to dismiss the Estate's action against Maurice for lack of jurisdiction.

We discuss in some detail the impact court unification has had on jurisdiction of the district courts. Because we are remanding this case for further proceedings, we also discuss several other procedural issues that have already divided the parties. We wish to make clear, however, that we express no views on the substantive legal dispute in this case. We could not, even if we were disposed to. The record is so meager--the parties effectively have not gotten beyond the pleading stage--the facts remain wholly undeveloped. What we have already said adequately sets out the factual dimensions of the issue for purposes of this opinion.

Because there are no material factual disputes bearing on the district court's decision to dismiss and jurisdiction typically presents a question of law, our review is plenary. Harsch v. Miller, 288 Kan. 280, 286, 200 P.3d 467 (2009); Rivera v. Cimarron Dairy, 267 Kan. 865, 868, 988 P.2d 235 (1999). That is, we owe no particular deference to the ruling below, and we may examine the issue anew.

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The issue the parties have given us turns on the scope of a district court's subject matter jurisdiction. Subject matter jurisdiction defines the legal authority of a particular court to hear a type of case or dispute. Padron v. Lopez, 289 Kan. 1089, 1106, 220 P.3d 345 (2009) ("Subject matter jurisdiction . . . establishes the court's authority to hear and decide a particular type of action. [Citations omitted.]"). Federal courts, for example, have distinctly limited jurisdiction; they cannot hear common law tort or contract actions unless the plaintiff and defendant are citizens of different states and the amount at issue exceeds $75,000. 28 U.S.C.

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