We frequently represent individuals, trust beneficiaries, personal representatives, trustees, administrators and other fiduciaries in disputes concerning trusts and estates, the management and administration thereof, the duties of fiduciaries, will contests, the interpretation of trust and estate planning instruments and the proper disposition of trust and estate assets. These matters are often a part of a larger piece of business litigation.
Some representative successes include:
- We obtained a Probate Court Order removing the Trustee of a Trust and appointing the Successor Trustee requested by Davison Law to administer, distribute and account for Trust assets.
- On our Petition to Remove Trustee and Appoint Successor Trustee, the Probate Court approved the settlement under which the corporate Trustee resigned and the proposed Successor Trustee was appointed to office.
- We obtained an Order striking Objections to the allowance of a Will and the Appointment of the Personal Representative, leading to the rapid resolution of all claims asserted in the Probate Court.
- We resolved claims relating to an Estate shortly after we obtained Temporary Restraining Orders and Attachments in the Superior Court freezing all assets in the Estate and a related Trust (approximately $6 million) as well as all personal assets of the Trustee and Personal Representative, where the fiduciary had transferred the entire Trust corpus to himself.
- Following the Superior Court’s denial of the professional Trustee’s Motion for Summary Judgment, we achieved the successful resolution of a complex fiduciary litigation in the Superior and Probate Courts, resulting in the Trustee paying $12 million of Trust funds to our client individually.
- We achieved resolution (through a buy-out on favorable terms) of a longstanding and intractable dispute among shareholders in a closely-held business where our client inherited her interest in the business from her father, a founder, and was subsequently frozen out of the company.
- In a case of first impression, the Appeals Court affirmed the Probate Court’s determination that a guardian’s funding of a (d)(4)(A) Trust after the ward had deceased was unlawful and Order that the funds be repaid to the Estate.
- We received orders from the Probate Court removing a fiduciary as executrix and trustee, and appointing our client to serve in her stead, together with a substantial award of attorneys’ fees.
- In a complex fiduciary litigation, we obtained an order on our Motion for Summary Judgment in the Superior Court prohibiting defendant Trustee from paying its legal fees from the Trust.
- We obtained summary judgment from the Superior Court for our client in a lawsuit alleging that a general power of appointment was not properly exercised in favor of our client.
- In a will contest, following trial in the Probate Court, we obtained judgment of in excess of $650,000.00 in favor of our client, representing attorneys’ fees and funds removed from the Estate.
- Following our introduction of evidence of an improperly-executed Codicil drafted and offered by the Executrix (who was also a devisee), the Probate Court removed the Executrix and appointed a Special Administrator to administer the estate.
