February 9th, 2012

Pursuing fiduciary litigation cases in federal court can be tricky.  Not only does a plaintiff have to contend with the possibility of jurisdiction destroying defendants, but a plaintiff also has to deal with the ‘probate exception’ to federal jurisdiction.

In Downey v. Keltz, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois did a succinct job of explaining that a petition for an accounting does not implicate the ‘probate exception’ and likely does not require that all trust beneficiaries be parties to the litigation.  A petition to remove a trustee, however, likely would invoke the ‘probate exception’ and would require all trust beneficiaries to be parties to that litigation.

Let’s take a look at how the Court got there. (more…)