Justia Trusts & Estates Opinion Summaries

FCR filed suit against numerous defendants associated with the Life Investors Owners Participation Trust, alleging breaches of fiduciary duties and conversion. The Eighth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to defendants, holding that Trust section 11.9 authorized the Trustees to deduct funds from the Trust accounts to reimburse Life Investors for the money it advanced to pay for the defense in the Maryland litigation; the Trustees did indeed incur "cost" in the form of attorney's fees in defending the Maryland action unsuccessfully brought by Corrado and FCR; the Trustees did not breach their fiduciary duties; there was no material dispute as to the reasonableness of the attorney's fees because plaintiffs failed to challenge the fees; and the conversion claim failed because plaintiffs were unable to prove the first element of conversion, that their interests were subject to the terms of the Trust. View "Corrado v. Life Investors Insurance Co." on Justia Law

The Alabama Supreme Court granted Clifford Goodman Wright, the administrator of the estate of Mary Evelyn Wright, permission to appeal a circuit court interlocutory order. In that order, the trial court ruled that the $100,000 cap on damages set out in section 11-93-2, Ala. Code 1975, applied to Wright's claims against three nurses, Dawn Reid, Phyllis Harris, and Tuwanda Worrills, who were employees of the Cleburne County Hospital Board, Inc., d/b/a Cleburne County Nursing Home ("the Hospital Board"), at the times relevant to Wright's action. Section 11-93-2 governed "[t]he recovery of damages under any judgment against a [county or municipal] governmental entity." Because Wright sued the nurses seeking money damages in their individual capacities, the trial court erred in applying section 11-93-2 to Wright's claims. Accordingly, the Supreme Court reversed the trial court's judgment and remanded the case for further proceedings. View "Wright v. Cleburne County Hospital Board, Inc." on Justia Law

Robert Wehle died in 2002. The will created a marital trust for Wehle's wife, Gatra Wehle, and a family trust for his daughters and Wehle's granddaughter, Debbie Kloppenberg. The personal representatives were named as cotrustees of both the marital trust and the family trust. In 2005, the personal representatives petitioned the probate court for final settlement of the estate. They also filed an accounting of their administration of the estate. The accounting indicated that the personal representatives had paid themselves total compensation of $1,964,367.82, which, they alleged was 5% of the value of Wehle's estate at the time the petition for final settlement was filed, and was consistent with the statutory allowance for such fees. Further, the personal representatives maintained the decedent intended for the fees to be approximately 5% of the value of his estate. The daughters filed an objection to the accounting, arguing, among other things, that, pursuant to 43-2-844(7), Ala. Code 1975, the personal representatives were required to obtain prior court approval before compensating themselves out of the assets of the estate. The daughters also argued that the amount of the compensation exceeded the "reasonable compensation" allowed by 43- 2-848(a), Ala. Code 1975. The Alabama Supreme Court concluded the representatives' payment without prior authorization was not expressly authorized by the will, and the circuit court erred in granting partial summary judgment with respect to the fees. On remand, the circuit court held the $1,964,367.82 was "reasonable compensation" under 43-2-848(a), Ala. Code 1975. This award was appealed, with the Supreme Court rejecting the daughters' challenges to the reasonableness of the fees awarded to the personal representatives and the circuit court's refusal to remove a trustee. However, the Court agreed the circuit court erred in denying their claim seeking to recover interest from the date of the premature compensation payments through the date those payments were finally approved by the circuit court. The Court also agreed the circuit court erred "insofar as it determined the amount of the attorney fees" due the personal representatives in connection with their defense of the daughters' claims. Further, the Court held the circuit court had, as the daughters alleged, violated its mandate in the first appeal to tax the costs of the appeal in that case against the personal representatives. Still aggrieved, the parties appealed and cross-appealed. The Supreme Court affirmed in part and reversed in part, finding that because the personal representatives failed to demonstrate that the circuit court erred in awarding only the fees the personal representatives demonstrated that they actually incurred, the Supreme Court affirmed that portion of the circuit court's judgment. View "Wehle v. Bradley" on Justia Law

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court granted review to determine rightful title to a parcel of real property claimed by competing grantees, each of whom invoked a real or purported conveyance from the property’s owner. An additional issue under consideration was the application of res judicata and collateral estoppel during estate administration proceedings with regard to an earlier order of the Orphans’ Court determining the validity of a will. Relying upon a presumption that valid delivery of a deed occurs on the date of its execution and acknowledgment, the Superior Court held that title to the real estate vested in the grantee of the earlier, unrecorded instrument. The Superior Court further held that, where the Orphans’ Court determined that a will was valid and permitted a photocopy of that will to be probated, a participating party’s subsequent claim that the will was revoked was barred by the doctrines of res judicata and collateral estoppel. The Supreme Court determined the Orphans’ Court’s decision was supported by competent evidence, the court applied the correct principles of law in evaluating the question of delivery, and the court did not abuse its discretion in determining who possessed superior title to the property at issue by virtue of the 2006 Deeds. In reversing the Orphans’ Court’s decision on that issue, the Superior Court erred. When the parties litigated the alleged dissipation of estate assets, they did so within the context of those same estate administration proceedings. The Supreme Court concluded that a party’s challenge to the Orphan’s Court’s order did not arise within the context of subsequent litigation following a “final order,” but, rather, was advanced within the same proceedings as the challenged order; neither res judicata nor collateral estoppel served to preclude her claim. In this regard as well, the order of the Superior Court was reversed. View "In Re: Estate of Plance; Appeal of: Plance" on Justia Law

At issue before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court was a matter of first impression: the effect of 20 Pa.C.S. 7710.2 (enacted in 2006) upon the scope of the assets used to calculate the pretermitted spousal share. The named beneficiaries of the Trust upon Decedent’s death were his then-wife Joanne, and the children born to Decedent and Joanne. Pursuant to the terms of the Trust, Decedent had the prerogative to receive any portion of the trust income during his lifetime, to draw any amount of the trust principal for his own welfare, comfort, and support, and to terminate the Trust. Joanne died on August 15, 2010. On December 13, 2010, Decedent prepared a Last Will and Testament. Approximately one year later, on December 30, 2011, Decedent married Appellee Mary Jo Kulig. Since the will had been executed before his second marriage, it made no provision for Kulig, nor did the will include any indication that Decedent had contemplated remarriage when he executed it. On February 3, 2012, barely one month after marrying Kulig, Decedent died, survived by Kulig and by appellants (his children), Carrie Budke and James Kulig. By the terms of the Trust, if Joanne predeceased Decedent, the balance of the Trust corpus was to be divided and distributed to Children according to the Trust’s terms. Kulig undisputedly was entitled upon Decedent’s death to an ERISA benefit plan. The parties stipulated that Kulig, a pretermitted spouse under Pennsylvania law, was entitled to receive the same share of Decedent’s estate to which she would have been entitled had he died intestate. The Children filed a petition for declaratory judgment before the Orphans’ Court seeking a declaration that the Trust was excluded from Kulig’s pretermitted spousal share. Kulig opposed the petition, arguing primarily that, in calling for the application of the same interpretive principles to trusts that apply to wills, Section 7710.2 of the Code established that inter vivos trusts, like other assets, must be considered part of the intestate estate for purposes of calculating the pretermitted share. The Superior Court held Section 7710.2 mandated application to the Trust of the same presumption applicable to the will under Subsection 2507(3). Accordingly, the estate comprising the pretermitted spousal share necessarily included the Trust corpus. The Supreme Court reversed the Superior Court’s determination that the revocable inter vivos trust at issue should have been included in Decedent’s estate for purposes of discerning the pretermitted spouse’s statutory entitlement under 20 Pa.C.S. 2507. View "Re: Trust Under Deed of D. Kulig; Apl of Budke" on Justia Law

Appellants Tomeka and Marlon McElroy appealed a circuit court judgment denying their will contest. In 2010, Tracy McElroy filed a petition to probate the will of Clifton McElroy, Jr. Tracy was the executrix; the will was self-proving in accordance with the requirements of section 43-8-132, Ala. Code 1975. The probate court admitted the will to probate and issued letters testamentary to Tracy. Later that year, appellants filed a will contest in the probate court, alleging that Clifton's signature on the will was forged and that, therefore, the will was not properly executed. Appellants were both Clifton's heirs and beneficiaries under his will, and demanded that their will contest be transferred to the circuit court pursuant to 43-8-198, Ala. Code 1975. Tracy moved to dismiss the will contest, arguing that because the will had already been admitted to probate, the contest could not ben filed pursuant to 43-8-190, Ala. Code 1975. Generally, "[o]nce the administration and settlement of an estate are removed from the probate court, the probate court loses jurisdiction over the estate, and the circuit court obtains and maintains jurisdiction until the final settlement of the case." However, in this case, the administration of Clifton's estate was not properly removed from the probate court; therefore, the circuit court never obtained jurisdiction over the administration of Clifton's estate. Thus, the circuit court did not have subject-matter jurisdiction to consider the will contest, and the judgment entered by the circuit court on the will contest was void. Accordingly, the appeal was dismissed. View "McElroy v. McElroy" on Justia Law

This appeal stemmed from a Chancery Court judgment setting aside inter vivos gifts made by Sheila West. Acting through a durable power of attorney granted by her mother, Dorothy Johnson, Sheila West removed her brother’s, niece’s, and nephew’s names from certificates of deposit originally created by Dorothy Johnson, and replaced them with her own name and the names of her two daughters. Sheila’s brother, Ron Johnson, petitioned the chancery court to set aside these amendments as an improper transfer of an inter vivos gift. Following a trial on the matter, the chancellor found that Sheila did not overcome a presumption of undue influence in making what amounted to inter vivos gifts and thereby reverted ownership of the CDs to their original form. THe Mississippi Supreme Court found that because Dorothy Johnson retained an ownership interest in all of the CDs at issue, neither the original conveyance nor Sheila’s subsequent transfers could be considered inter vivos gifts. Therefore, the chancellor erred in his analysis of the issue. Also at issue in this matter was whether Sheila West engaged in self-dealing under the durable power of attorney granted to her by Dorothy Johnson. Finding that Sheila failed to overcome the burden of undue influence created by the confidential relationship between herself and Dorothy, the Supreme Court affirmed the chancellor’s decision to revert the CDs to their status prior to Sheila’s 2010 amendments. View "In the Matter of the Estate of Dorothy Johnson" on Justia Law

The circuit court did not err by concluding that a holographic writing did not comply with Va. Code 64.2-403 or -404.After the decedent died, the executor of the decedent’s estate submitted the decedent’s will and a writing written across a divider in a binder filled with estate planning documents that the executor argued was a codicil. The circuit court clerk admitted the will to probate but concluded that the writing was not a validly executed codicil. The executor appealed. The circuit court refused to probate the writing as a codicil, concluding that it did not comply with the statutory requirements set forth in section 64.2-403. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the record supported the circuit court’s rulings that the writing was neither signed in the manner required by section 64.2-403(A) nor intended to constitute a codicil. View "Irving v. Divito" on Justia Law

Timothy Betz appealed a district court order under N.D. Sup. Ct. Admin. R. 58, prohibiting him from filing any new litigation or documents in existing litigation without first obtaining leave of court. In 1994, the Emelia Hirsch June 9, 1994, Irrevocable Trust was created. Trust beneficiaries were Emelia Hirsch's three children and ten grandchildren, including Betz. In 2003, Emelia requested the district court to dissolve the trust. In 2008, after protracted litigation, the district court entered an order reforming the trust from an irrevocable trust to a revocable trust, which was affirmed on appeal. Betz continued litigation relating to the trust: in February 2017, Betz moved the district court to reopen the case and moved to immediately vacate the 2008 order. The district court filed a notice stating the case had been resolved, it would not be reopened, and no further order would be entered. Although Betz filed an objection to the court's notice and again requested the case be reopened, no appeal was taken of the court's February 2017 denial. In March 2017, Carolyn Twite and Duane Hirsch ("the co-trustees") moved the court seeking a pre-filing order against Betz. In April 2017, after a hearing, the presiding judge issued a notice of proposed findings and order. Betz filed a response in opposition to the proposed findings and order. Thereafter, the district court presiding judge entered an order under N.D. Sup. Ct. Admin. R. 58, finding that Betz was a vexatious litigant. Because the North Dakota Supreme Court concluded the district court did not abuse its discretion in entering the order, it affirmed. View "Matter of Emelia Hirsch Trust" on Justia Law

Defendants Alan Johnson, Joseph McDonald, and William Saturley, appealed a probate court order which set aside “decantings” from two 2004 irrevocable trusts of which plaintiffs, David A. Hodges, Jr. (David Jr.), Barry R. Sanborn, and Patricia Sanborn Hodges, had been beneficiaries, and which removed defendants Johnson and Saturley as cotrustees of those trusts. The decantings at issue eliminated the future beneficial interests of plaintiffs. The trial court ruled that the decantings were void ab initio because McDonald, as the decanting trustee, and Johnson and Saturley, to the extent they assisted as co-trustees in facilitating the decantings, failed to “give any consideration to the [plaintiffs’] beneficial interests.” The trial court also determined that it “best serves the interests of all beneficiaries to order removal of . . . Saturley and Johnson as co-trustees.” Finding no reversible error, the New Hampshire Supreme Court affirmed. View "Hodges & Johnson" on Justia Law