Stewart

Plaintiff and appellant Caroline Stewart (Stewart) appeals an order dismissing her complaint following the sustaining without leave of a demurrer interposed by defendant and respondent Shedra K. Seward, administrator of the estate of Wilmer Koontz (administrator).

The essential issue presented is whether the trial court properly found Stewart’s action is barred by the one-year statute of limitations provided in Code of Civil Procedure section 366.3.

We reject Stewart’s theory she was a “creditor” of the estate of Wilmer Koontz (Wilmer) and that, following the administrator’s rejection of her “creditor’s claim,” her cause of action came within the tolled or extended statute of limitations of section 366.2. The trial court properly determined Stewart’s action arose, not from her status as a “creditor,” but from Wilmer’s alleged breach of a “promise or agreement with a decedent to distribution from an estate” within the meaning of section '366.3, subdivision (a) and, accordingly, that the statute’s one-year statute of limitations applied. Because the statute of limitations under section 366.3 began to mn on the day of Wilmer’s death, October 26, 2004, and Stewart did not…