Fierce Representation Holds Trustees Accountable
Breach of fiduciary duty can have a devastating impact on a beneficiary’s life. As trust and estate litigation attorneys, we have witnessed numerous situations over the years where a client’s life is upended for no fault of their own when trustees do not fulfill their fiduciary duty. This was exactly the situation in a recent case where Laura Bonander was hired to represent a young man who was living out of an old van without convenient access to a toilet or a shower, and even though he worked, he sometimes did not have enough to eat. He had been an Eagle Scout and had started college when his mother died, which led him to drop out and seek a different path for his life. He had seen his parents go through a bitter divorce followed by his mother's illness and death. His mother left a trust to support him and his older sister, but due to the divorce, she put her sister and her cousin in charge of the money as trustees.
Trustees Deny Support
Despite the young man’s pleas for help, and the directives of the trust, the trustees would not provide him with appropriate support, even in the middle of the pandemic. The trustees insisted he return to college and demanded he get psychological counseling as conditions for support, conditions that his mother had not put in the trust. It appeared that he was being punished for remaining close to his father. His father helped him find Laura with the hope that the situation could be rectified. The young man told Laura he was able to survive by using the skills he learned as an Eagle Scout, living outdoors and making multiple repairs to the van himself to keep it going. His sister did not have the same problems with the trustees because she was in her last year of college when her mother died and was able to finish college and support herself.
Laura was outraged that this earnest young man was being so badly mistreated. She took the case and advocated for him with the ferocity and determination of a mother protecting her child, only she was protecting someone else's child. The trustees had to honor the mother's intent that her son's needs would be met when she was gone and without conditions, Laura insisted. She would hold the trustees to their fiduciary duty to support this young man, and she would not tolerate their feeble excuses borne of personal grievances and designs that had no relevance to their duties as fiduciaries. Laura explained that the trustees could be removed, denied compensation and held personally liable for damages, including punitive damages and attorneys' fees if they continued to breach their duties by denying support, and leaving this deserving young man to fend for himself.
The trustees were both stubborn and well represented and did not yield easily, but Laura persisted. She wrote, called, argued, negotiated and kept doing it again and again, overcoming every obstacle and excuse. Eventually the trustees, their lawyer, or both came to understand the trustees' exposure to liability and realized they would have no peace so long as they continued to ignore the young man's needs and Laura's advocacy. Laura persuaded the trustees to resign. She found a professional fiduciary willing to serve, who won the approval of everyone involved.
A Happy Ending
So here is the good news. Fewer than 11 months after Laura met him, the young man has a new trustee. He is receiving the support that his mother intended, he is no longer living out of his van and for the first time since his mother died, he is finally able to resume planning and working toward building a successful future for himself. His older sister was supportive throughout the process and agreed with the resolution that was reached.
It is especially gratifying when we are able to advocate on behalf of clients and help them move forward with their lives.