July 25th, 2012

A trustee‘s intent is an awfully important thing, but for some reason it often gets forgotten or ignored by courts, lawyers, and litigants.  An area in which the trustee’s intent and the four corners of the trust instrument may be most at risk is when the parties in trust litigation start hammering out a settlement agreement.  What deference is given the trust instrument when the parties settle trust litigation?

In In re the Matter of the Frank J. Rekucki, Sr. Revocable Trust under agreement dated September 8, 1997 (unpublished), the Court of Appeals of Minnesota answered that question under Minnesota law: a lot. (more…)

July 23rd, 2012

Trustees aren’t always one-stop shops.  In some states, trustees can delegate certain investment decisions.  Also, most trust instruments allow trustees to hire people to help them perform certain activities, such as lawyers and accountants.  Occasionally, an aggrieved party sues these people hired to help the trustee.  In these circumstances, the question becomes what duty was owed by the person hired by the trustee.  That question can often be answered by figuring out what that person was hired to do for the trustee.

In Taylor v. Barberino, the Appellate Court of Connecticut recently considered that question as applied to an accounting firm.  A successor trustee sued an accounting firm that was engaged by the trusts to provide accounting services on the grounds that the accounting firm failed to accurately maintain records of the operation of the trusts and failed to properly account for the financial activities of the trusts.  The trial court granted summary judgment to the accounting firm and the appellate court agreed.  Here’s why . . . (more…)

July 18th, 2012

Last month, the Georgia Court of Appeals was busy addressing cases involving efforts to set aside deeds based on fraud.  So, we’ll take another look at a Georgia fraud case this week: Dunkley v. Evans.  While the appellate court had to address several legal issues, we’ll focus on the statute of limitations.  Here’s how the Georgia Court of Appeals said it worked in a fraud case: (more…)

July 16th, 2012

It’s no easy task to set aside a deed based on fraud.  Yet, because fraud is so difficult to prove through direct evidence, courts have established ways for plaintiffs to prove fraud by circumstantial evidence.  In Georgia, great inadequacy of of consideration, joined with great disparity of mental ability in contracting a bargain, may justify equity in setting aside a sale or other contract.  Where these two elements exist, a deed may be set aside without proof of anything else as to fraud.

In Slaick v. Arnold, the Georgia Court of Appeals recently got to apply this framework. (more…)

July 11th, 2012

In fiduciary litigation cases, it’s common to encounter courts and practitioners who don’t really appreciate the difference between a litigant’s individual capacity and that litigant’s representative, fiduciary capacity.  In other words, the two capacities tend to get conflated.

In Beekhuis v. Morris, a Florida appellate court reminds us that there really is a difference between someone acting individually and that same person acting in a representative capacity as a fiduciary. (more…)

July 9th, 2012

Most grantors understand that their trustee shouldn’t have a court looking over its shoulder every time it exercises a discretionary power.  That’s why trustees are granted discretionary powers.

Despite a grantor’s broad grant of authority to a trustee, however, trustees often find themselves embroiled in litigation over the exercise of a discretionary power, particularly with respect to discretionary distributions.

In Thompson v. Anthony (unpublished), in the context of an unjust enrichment claim, the Appeals Court of Massachusetts considered the implication of a trust provision giving the trustees “absolute discretion” over distributions. (more…)

July 2nd, 2012

The issue of standing regularly arises in fiduciary litigation.   Generally, to establish standing to sue, a plaintiff must have suffered an injury in fact, the injury must be traceable to the conduct complained of, and it must be likely that the injury will be redressed by a decision in the plaintiff’s favor.

Lack of standing can be a good defense in fiduciary litigation cases because many estate planning documents are ambulatory and can be changed at any time.  How can a person have suffered harm – an injury in fact – if they could have been written out of a will, taken off an account, or removed as the beneficiary of an insurance policy at any time?

The issue of standing in a fiduciary litigation context was recently before the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia in Hill v. Clark (2012 WL 1903265).  Let’s take a quick look at the background. (more…)