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Trustee removal and appointment of successor trustee
After the trial court removed Trustee from office, Trustee asserted that an earlier settlement agreement addressing Trustee’s use of over $500,000 of trust funds for her personal use was an election of remedies precluding or waiving the removal action. The...
Trust Decanting
William R. Culp, Jr. (attorney, Charlotte, NC) & Briani Bennett Mellen (attorney, Columbia, SC) recently published their article entitled Trust Decanting: An Overview and Introduction to Creative Planning Opportunities, 45 Real Prop., Tr. & Est. L. J. 1 (Spring 2010)....
Texas court virtually abolishes revocation by physical act
In In re Estate of Catlin, 311 S.W.3d 697 (Tex. App.—Amarillo 2010, pet. denied), the trial court admitted a lost will to probate under Prob. Code § 85. The appellate court affirmed rejecting Contestant’s assertion that there was insufficient evidence...
Charitable Lids
Wayne E. Nix (Assistant Professor of Accounting, Jackson State University), Lee G. Knight (Professor of Accountancy, Wake Forest University), and Ray A. Knight (Managing Director of Capstone Planning Alliance LLC) recently published their article entitled New Life for Charitable Lids,...
How the Rich Shield Assets
Why would Jamie McCourt sign a post-nuptial agreement giving up her rights in the Los Angeles Dodgers? She and Frank McCourt are now in the midst of a divorce and she is trying to claim that she didn’t know what...
Help Your Clients Find a Nursing Home
William S. Friedlander (attorney, Ithaca, NY) recently published his article entitled Step by Step: Help Your Clients Pick a Nursing Home, Am. Ass'n for Just. (July 2010). An excerpt from the introduction is below: Clearly, there’s more to nursing home...
Facebook just asked me if I wanted to be friends with a dead person!
A few minutes ago, I signed on to my Facebook page and was greeted with a message asking me if I wanted to "friend" a person whom I know is no longer functioning as a carbon based biological unit, or,...
Undue Influence
In In re Estate of Russell, 311 S.W.3d 528 (Tex. App.—El Paso 2009, no pet. h.), Testatrix’s will was successfully contested by her granddaughters who claimed that Testatrix was subject to undue influence when she executed her will. The appellate...
An Analysis of The Uniform Statutory Trust Entity Act
Robert B. Shepherd, Jr. (JD-MBA, 2010, Quinnipiac University School of Law and School of Business) has recently published his note entitled What Roosevelt Thought: A Rough Rider's Guide to the USTEA [Uniform Statutory Trust Entity Act], 232 Quinnipiac Prob. L.J....
Dodgers' Charity Being Investigated
The California attorney general’s office recently opened an investigation into the 2007 salary of Howard Sunkin, the chief executive of the Dodgers’ Dream Foundation. Sunkin earned more than $400,000 in 2007, which was one-fourth of the Foundation’s budget that year....