Justia Trusts & Estates Opinion Summaries

Tracy Stanfield was injured in 1992. A settlement relating to his injuries resulted in an annuity providing periodic payments to Stanfield from Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (MetLife). Stanfield assigned certain annuity payments, and the assignee in turn assigned them to J. G. Wentworth S.S.C. Limited Partnership (Wentworth). Stanfield later caused MetLife to ignore the assignments to Wentworth. Wentworth filed an action in a Pennsylvania state court and obtained a judgment against Stanfield. Wentworth then filed a motion for a judgment against MetLife for the same amount. A Pennsylvania court granted the motion. Soon thereafter, Stanfield's mother Mildred filed a petition in an Oklahoma district court to be appointed guardian of her son's estate. MetLife filed an interpleader action in a Pennsylvania federal district court and named Wentworth and Mildred in her capacity as guardian of her son's estate as defendants. Mildred asked attorney Loyde Warren to accept service of process on her behalf, and he agreed. Stanfield signed Warren's contingency fee agreement; Warren then engaged local counsel in Pennsylvania. At the settlement conference the parties agreed that Wentworth's judgment would be withdrawn; payments would be paid from Stanfield's annuity payments to Wentworth; the annuity assignment was rescinded; and future annuity payments from MetLife to Stanfield, as guardian, would be made payable in care of Warren. In 2009, Warren filed a motion in the open and continuing guardianship case before the Oklahoma district court for approval of both the 2001 contract for legal representation and the payment of legal fees made pursuant to that contract. Mildred objected and among her arguments, she maintained that a contingency fee for successfully defending a client from a judgment was improper, and that the fee agreement was unenforceable because it had not been approved by the guardianship court. The district court denied Warren's motion, "[b]ecause the application was not filed prior to payment of the fee and was not filed until nearly eight years after the contract was executed." The Court of Civil Appeals affirmed, and Warren appealed. Upon review, the Supreme Court held that (1) the district court possessed jurisdiction to adjudicate a guardianship proceeding a motion seeking court approval of a lawyer's contingent fee contract; (2) the guardian's failure to obtain court approval of a contingent fee agreement prior to payment pursuant to that agreement is not, by itself, a legally sufficient reason for a court to deny a motion to approve the agreement; and (3) the mere passage of time between creation of a contingent fee agreement and when it is presented to a court for approval in an open and continuing guardianship proceeding is not a legally sufficient reason to deny approval of that agreement. View "In the matter of the Guardianship of Stanfield" on Justia Law

Appellee/Counter-appellant, Archie Dicksion filed a petition for the probate of the holographic will of his brother. Subsequently, Thomas Powell asserted that he was a pretermitted heir of the deceased. With the family's cooperation, DNA genetic testing was conducted and the tests determined that Powell was indeed the son of the decedent. The trial court determined that Powell was an unintentionally omitted child and entitled to his statutory share of the estate. Powell and his half-sister, the decedent's daughter, also challenged the admittance of the holographic will to probate and to Appellant's appointment as the personal representative of the estate. A motion for new trial was denied. Both Powell and the Appellant appealed and the Court of Civil Appeals reversed and remanded. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to address the application of paternity testing to intestate and probate proceedings. Upon review, the Court held that: (1) under the facts presented, the objections to admission of the holographic will were not untimely; (2) the paternity statute, 84 O.S. 2001 sec. 215, applies to intestate and probate proceedings; and (3) 58 O.S. 2001 sec. 122 prohibits the appointment of a business partner as personal representative only when the proceedings are intestate or when the business partner is not named personal representative in a will.

Appellants Eleanor and Robert Reed, Diane Martin and Meredith Farmer petitioned the Supreme Court to challenge the Court of Civil Appeals' decision which upheld the trial court's determination regarding Appellee-Trustee JP Morgan Chase Bank's previously-adjudicated ability to draw on the trusts's principal. The trust in question named Appellant Eleanor Reed as beneficiary, and authorized payments of up to half of its income payable quarterly, for her support and well-being. In 1998, Reed filed a Petition for Instructions in district court in Tulsa County, requesting the court determine what distributions were permitted under the Trust. Specifically, Reed sought instructions for the co-trustee, Bank One Trust Company, N.A., to pay certain of Reed's expenses from the Trust's principal. In 2007, Reed and three of her four children, Robert Reed, Diane Martin and Meredith Farmer, filed suit to modify the terms of the trust to allow Appellee JP Morgan Chase to make payments from the remaining half of the trust's principal. Appellants stated that Reed was "an incapacitated person afflicted with Alzheimer's disease, and her condition constitutes an emergency condition which will necessitate her being housed in a nursing home. She is wheel-chair bound, 84 years old, and in precarious health." Appellants maintained that Testator would have wanted Reed, his only child, to have the use of the remaining Trust funds to provide for her well-being. Appellees objected to the suit, arguing that the Testator's intent regarding the payment from principal had been determined in a 1998 Order and, as such, the claims asserted in the Amended Petition are barred by the doctrine of res judicata and collateral estoppel. Upon review, the Supreme Court saw no connection between the 1998 Order and the issue presented to it on appeal: "[w]hile we agree that the subject matter, the parties, and the capacity of the parties remain the same, we cannot agree that the cause of the action is the same as that in the 1998 matter. The focus of the 1998 lawsuit was to provide instructions to the trustee to make payments from half of the Trust corpus on behalf of Reed. This payment was expressly provided for in the Trust instrument. In the present action, Appellants [sought] due to an unforeseen medical emergency, to modify the express terms of the Trust and to show that Testator would have intended Reed's present needs be cared for even if it meant invading the remaining half of the Trust corpus." The Court vacated the appellate court's opinion in this matter and remanded the case back to the trial court for determination of whether modification should be allowed under the terms of the trust.