Justia Trusts & Estates Opinion Summaries

Appellant Lori Davis, individually and as personal representative of the estate of her husband Keith L. Davis, M.D., appealed three superior court orders dated March 7, 2014, April 1, 2014, and April 21, 2014, which granted mandatory interlocutory injunctions against her and held her in civil and criminal contempt in an action brought against her husband’s estate by Steven M. Roth, M.D. and two Georgia limited liability companies Roth co-owned with Keith Davis. The plaintiffs filed suit against appellant and the Davis Estate seeking to enforce certain provisions of the companies’ operating agreements giving Roth, as the surviving member of the LLCs, an option to purchase Davis’ interests, and to otherwise establish the rights of the parties, including the ownership of certain trademarks. Appellant also appeals an April 21, 2014 order where the trial court adopted the Third Report of the Special Master and limited discovery in the pending case. Appellees, VCP South, LLC, VCP Raleigh, LLC and Mary Anne Roth, individually and as Executrix of the Estate of Steven M. Roth, M.D. cross-appealed, alleging the trial court erred in allowing the Davis Estate to maintain an ownership interest in the LLCs past the time provided for in the operating agreements, and in allowing the distribution of LLC profits accruing after Davis’ death to the Davis Estate. After careful consideration of the parties' arguments on both the appeal and cross-appeal, and finding no reversible error, the Supreme Court affirmed the superior court's orders. View "Davis v. VCP South, LLC" on Justia Law

Plaintiff and Judy Hoffman were divorced in 1994. Judy died intestate in 2007, and Plaintiff was named personal representative of her estate. Defendant, an attorney and Judy’s friend, was the beneficiary of two of Judy’s life insurance policies and her retirement account and received $236,024 from these accounts. Plaintiff brought an action against Defendant alleging breach of fiduciary duty arising out of the attorney-client relationship, breach of fiduciary duty arising out of the duty of a trustee, and conversion. The district court found for Defendant and dismissed Plaintiff’s claims. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the district court did not err in (1) determining that an express trust needed to be created in order to find Defendant liable and in placing the burden to prove such trust on Plaintiff; (2) failing to impose a constructive trust on the insurance proceeds; (3) failing to find that Defendant deviated from the standard of care and committed legal malpractice by accepting and retaining Judy’s death benefit funds given his status as her attorney; and (4) admitting into evidence a photocopy of a note purportedly given from Judy to Defendant. View "Gallner v. Larson" on Justia Law

After Elda Coborn died intestate, Appellants, Coborn’s daughters, filed an application for a summary decree of distribution in Laramie County, Wyoming. The district court granted the application in part, distributing the personal property and real property located in Laramie County, but denied the application with regard to the mineral interests in Campbell and Johnson Counties based on its determination that it lacked the authority to order summary distribution of the decedent’s real property interests located in counties other than Laramie County. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that Wyo. Stat. Ann. 2-1-205 did not require Appellants to file a petition for summary distribution in every county in which the decedent’s property was located. View "In re Estate of Coborn" on Justia Law

Delbert Deutsch died in 2012. Deutsch’s widow, Marcelina, and her son found a copy of a 2011 will on top of Delbert’s desk but, after a careful and exhaustive search, could not find an original will. Delbert’s nephews filed a petition for formal probate of the copy of the will and for determination of heirs. After a trial, the circuit court concluded that the lost will was not revoked by Delbert and admitted the copy of the will to probate. Marcelina appealed, arguing that the circuit court erred by admitting the copy of the will to probate. The nephews also appealed, contending that the court erred by denying their request for reimbursement of attorney’s fees. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the circuit court (1) did not clearly err in determining that the will had not been revoked; and (2) did not abuse its discretion in denying the nephews’ petition for attorney’s fees. View "In re Estate of Deutsch" on Justia Law

Wallace B. Flint established a detailed estate plan in his Last Will and Testament that created a testamentary trust that would receive as its corpus the residue of his estate (the Trust). Flint’s daughter, Katherine, was an income beneficiary of the Trust. Katherine filed a petition seeking (1) to modify the terms of the Trust by rewriting its administrative provisions, thus converting the Trust from a traditional, trustee-managed structure into a directed trust where the trustee would serve only an administrative role; and (2) to modify a previous order regarding the law governing the Trust that would create a contingent choice of law provision in which Delaware law would govern all issues of administration unless it would or might create adverse tax affects, in which case New York law - the law that originally governed the Trust under Flint’s estate plan - would spring back into effect. The Court of Chancery denied both requests, holding (1) Katherine’s petition sought to modify the Will in a manner that conflicted with Flint’s intent; and (2) the proposed provision of the petition seeking an order providing that Delaware law will govern the administration of the trust under certain circumstances contained language that was too vague and uncertain to be implemented. View "In re Trust Under Will of Flint" on Justia Law

Vlada Abraitis, the mother of Sarunas Abraitis, died in 2008. Vlada’s will named Sarunas as the executor of the estate. Sarunas applied to admit his mother’s will, executed in 1978, to probate, and the matter was assigned to Judge Laura Gallagher. Sarunas’s brother, Vytautas, died in 2013 while the estate was being administered. Vytautus’s former wife, Vivian, was named as the personal representative of his estate. In 2014, Vivian filed the underlying complaint to contest a will that Vlada executed in 1993. Vlada also sought a declaratory judgment that a certain survivorship deed was invalid and that the property transferred by the deed belonged in Vlada’s estate. This action was also assigned to Judge Gallagher. Sarunas filed the complaint in this case seeking a writ of prohibition, asserting that Vivian lacked standing to bring the action. Sarunas also sought a writ to prohibit Judge Gallagher from proceeding in the action. The court of appeals dismissed the complaint. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) Vivian had a potential interest in Vlada’s estate and was therefore a “person interested” who may bring the combined will-contest and declaratory-judgment action; and (2) therefore, Judge Gallagher had jurisdiction to proceed in the underlying action. View "State ex rel. Abraitis v. Gallagher" on Justia Law

Respondent-trustee Bonnie Katzenstein, representing the Feinberg Family Trust (dated October 30, 1984), filed a petition after Rober Feinberg had passed away. Mr. Feinberg was the cosettlor and former cotrustee of the Trust and the named insured in two life insurance policies. In the Petition, the Trustee sought: (1) a determination that the Trust is the beneficiary of, and therefore entitled to the proceeds from, one of the insurance policies; and (2) damages against Chabad of Poway (Chabad) for interfering with the payment of that policy's benefits to the Trust. Chabad responded by filing a document entitled "Claimant's Objection and Counter Claim [sic] to Petition filed by Trustee to Determine Ownership of Life Insurance Policy Proceeds" (Objection and Counterclaim). In an unsigned minute order following summary judgment proceedings initiated by Trustee, the court sua sponte struck Chabad's Objection and Counterclaim on the basis that the Code of Civil Procedure precluded a party from seeking affirmative relief in an answer. Chabad appealed. The Court of Appeal found that the unsigned minute order was not an appealable order under either the Code of Civil Procedure or the Probate Code. As such, the Court lacked jurisdiction to hear Chabad's appeal, and dismissed it. View "Katzenstein v. Chabad of Poway" on Justia Law

In 2007, the remainder beneficiaries of two testamentary trusts sued defendant Bank of America for its actions as trustee from 1991 through 2003. The beneficiaries alleged that the Bank had invested trust assets in an unproductive commercial building in direct violation of express trust provisions and had thereby caused the loss of trust value in breach of its duty of care. The beneficiaries also alleged that, as part of this investment, the Bank arranged loans to the trust from its own affiliates that were secured by mortgages on the building and collected loan fees and mortgage interest from the trust in breach of its duty of loyalty. The New Mexico Uniform Trust Code provided that when a trustee breaches its duty of care and causes a loss to the trust, that lost value must be returned to the trust as restoration damages. It also provided that when a trustee breaches its duty of loyalty by self-dealing, any profit from such self-dealing must be disgorged so that the trustee cannot profit from its wrongdoing. "Restoration and disgorgement are not mutually exclusive, and recovery need not be limited to the amount of a beneficiary’s loss if more is required to ensure that both remedial goals are met." Because it was unclear whether the principles of disgorgement and restoration have both been satisfied in this case, the Supreme Court remanded to the district court to determine whether the profit wrongfully earned by the trustee was included in the restoration award to the beneficiary. View "Miller v. Bank of America" on Justia Law

At issue in this case was whether, and to what extent, the Colorado Probate Code displaced a probate court's authority to award an equitable adjustment supplementing a spouse's elective share of the decedent's estate. By the date of final distribution of the estate at the heart of this case, it had grown in value from $73 million to more than $250 million. Concluding that it would be unfair for the elective share to be "frozen in time" while extensive litigation concerning its computation eroded its value in relation to the appreciating estate, the probate court exercised its equitable authority by supplementing the elective share. The probate court determined that the spouse was entitled to an elective share of approximately $26 million, plus an equitable award of approximately $24.5 million, based on a17.46% rate of return on the undistributed balance of her elective share, calculated to reflect appreciation and income to the entire estate. The court of appeals reversed the trial court's decision, ruling that the Probate Code displaced a court's equitable powers in the elective-share arena as a matter of law. The court of appeals ordered the spouse to repay the entire $24.5 million equitable award, plus restitutionary interest from the date of distribution. Reading the elective-share statutes together with the probate court's equitable authority, the Supreme Court concluded that the Colorado Probate Code's plain language demonstrated that a particular statutory provision dealing with the spouse's elective share, section 15-11-202(1), C.R.S. (2014), fixed the value of the property comprising the augmented estate on the decedent's date of death. This specific provision controlled over the general equitable authority the probate court may exercise under section 15-10-103, C.R.S. (2014).Accordingly, the probate court erred by linking its equitable award to appreciation and income to the entire augmented estate. Nevertheless, section 15-10-103 expressly reserved the probate court's equitable authority to the extent that it was not displaced by a specific statutory provision. "On remand, the probate court has tools at its disposal to exercise equity consistent with the statutory elective-share framework." The Court set aside the court of appeals' judgment requiring the spouse to repay the entire $24.5 million equitable award with interest. The probate court's mandate on remand was to determine what equitable relief was available to the spouse under the specific facts of this case. View "Beren v. Beren" on Justia Law

As surviving spouse of Frank Mattern, Jeanette Mattern appealed a district court judgment dividing the couple's marital homestead into three individual apartments and ordering Jeanette Mattern to pay rent retroactively and in the future while she lived in the homestead. Under the specific facts of this case, the Supreme Court affirmed the portion of the district court judgment granting Jeanette Mattern a homestead in the second-floor residence of the property, but reversed the portion of the judgment ordering her to pay rent for residing there. "If property claimed as a homestead exceeds the value of the homestead exemption, the homestead must be set off in such form as to exclude the excess, unless the homestead cannot be divided without material harm. If the homestead cannot be divided without material injury, the family home must be preserved intact as against heirs even though the homestead exceeds the homestead exemption amount." View "Mattern v. Frank J. Mattern Estate" on Justia Law