In re Estate of Drake
District of Columbia Court of Appeals
4 A.3d 450 (D.C. App. 2010)
St. Claire Drake (plaintiff) settled her renunciation-of-will suit against Carthur's estate and trust (defendants) in 1998, with the agreement providing they would issue her a quitclaim deed for certain trust-owned property, subject to IRS liens, within 20 days of the liens' release. By 2008 the liens still hadn't been released, and St. Claire Drake sued for possession of the property, presenting evidence there had been no progress toward resolving the liens and that the defendants hadn't even attempted to address them in the preceding four years; the trial court ordered the defendants to grant the quitclaim deed, and they appealed.
Whether the non-occurrence of a settlement agreement's condition precedent — release of IRS liens on property — may be excused as waived, where the party benefiting from the condition made no good-faith effort to resolve the liens for a decade.