Justia Delaware Court of Chancery Opinion Summaries

Articles Posted in Trusts & Estates
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This case involved a suit by a holder of auction rate notes issued under an Indenture of Trust and certain "Supplemental Indentures" thereto, against the issuer of the notes, and the trust. Plaintiff claimed that the issuer caused the trust to pay millions of dollars in excessive fees to the issuer and an affiliate of the issuer in breach of limits on those fees set forth in the Supplemental Indentures. The court held that because plaintiff had not pled that it had met any of the conditions precedent to suit required by the no-action clause, the court dismissed plaintiff's claims. View "RBC Capital Markets, LLC v. Education Loan Trust IV, et al." on Justia Law

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This matter involved a dispute over the disposition of a certain parcel of real estate that was the residence of Arlington J. Wiltbank, who died on December 5, 2002 and was survived by three children, including Claudia Wiltbank-Johnson. Pursuant to Court of Chancery Rule 144, the court carefully reviewed de novo the record of the trial before the Master and also heard live testimony regarding certain potentially dispositive credibility issues that the court had found existed based on its review of the record. The court concluded that Claudia had not satisfied her burden of proving that Wiltbank granted her a life estate in the property in exchange for caring for him toward the end of his life. Therefore, the partition of the property could proceed. View "Brown v. Wiltbank, et al." on Justia Law

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Plaintiff, individually and as trustee of the Peter R. Brinckerhoff Revocable Trust, was the holder of limited partnership units (LP units) of Enbridge Energy Partners, L.P. (the Partnership). Plaintiff, both derivatively, on behalf of the Partnership, and directly, on behalf of the public holders of the Partnership LP units, brought various claims against defendants. Defendants subsequently moved to dismiss all of plaintiff's claims. The court held that Count I was dismissed because plaintiff failed to plead facts suggesting that defendants acted in bad faith; Count II and IV were dismissed for failure to state a claim; and Count III was dismissed because plaintiff could not plead an implied covenant claim. View "Brinckerhoff v. Enbridge Energy Co., Inc., et al." on Justia Law

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Decedent's parents brought a wrongful death action against the nominal defendant after the nominal defendant allegedly ran through a stop sign which resulted in decedent's death. As part of that dispute, decedent's parents sought to discover information regarding two trusts, collectively known as the JBG Children's 1991 Trust (1991 Trusts), that nominal defendant and his ex-wife created for the benefit of their children (beneficiaries). Plaintiff, the trustee of the 1991 Trusts filed the present action seeking to confirm that the nominal defendant had no beneficial interest in the 1991 Trusts and that, therefore, decedent's parents should not be permitted to depose the trustee's employees in Delaware or Florida or otherwise obtain records of, or confidential information about, those trusts. The trustee subsequently filed a Motion and Proposed Order for a Rule to Show Cause in this action that would direct the decedent's parents to appear before the court and state why it should not enter a declaratory judgment. As a preliminary matter, the court held that the trustee's claims for relief presented an actual case or controversy sufficient to support a justifiable claim for relief under the Delaware Declaratory Judgment Act, 10 Del. C. 6501-6513. The court also held that the McWane Cast Iron Pipe Corp. v. McDowell-Wellman Eng'g Co. Doctrine did not justify maintaining a stay and that there was no good reason to delay further proceedings to address the narrowly focused relief sought by the trustee's motion for entry of a rule to show cause. View "Bessemer Trust Co. of DE, N.A. v. Wilson" on Justia Law

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This was an action for approval of accounting and termination of a testamentary trust. Jean I. Willey, the testator, had four sons: Todd, Mark, Scott, and Dale. Todd, filed a motion seeking approval of the trust accounting and the termination of Mark's supplemental needs trust, the corpus of which, according to Todd, was reduced to around $5,000 and should be turned over to Mark (via his guardians). The petition to approve the accounting and terminate the trust was opposed by Mark and Scott, together with Scott's wife (collectively, the "Objectors"). The Objectors made three objections to the Petition to Terminate the Estate: the gift of money from Jean to Todd during her lifetime worked an ademption on the bequest to Todd of a portion of the residue of Jean's estate; Jean's real property, which passed to the four brothers as co-tenants, and which was informally managed as a rental property for several years by Dale, generated more income than had been distributed to the brothers; and the language in the will which they construed as creating in Jean's real property a life estate for Mark. The court denied all of the Objector's objections and granted the Trustee's Petition to Approve the Accounting and the Dissolution of the Trust. The court also held that the trustee should submit a form of order consistent with the opinion within thirty calendar days. View "In the matter of: Jean I. Willey Trust" on Justia Law

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This case stemmed from a dispute regarding the distribution formula of an irrevocable trust that Wilbert L. and Genevieve W. Gore set up for the benefit of their grandchildren (Pokeberry Trust). The court held that the October Instrument governed the Pokeberry Trust; the Pokeberry Formula would be applied to determine how the corpus of the trust would be distributed among the Gores' nineteen natural-born children; and Jan C. was neither a grandchild of the Gores for purposes of the Pokeberry Trust nor entitled to any relief other than what he was granted by the September Opinion. Counsel was requested to confer and to submit an implementing order. View "In the Matter of Trust for Grandchildren of Wilbert L. and Genevieve W. Gore " on Justia Law

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This case stemmed from an adverse possession property dispute in Sussex County, Delaware. The court found that petitioners were, by at least 1980, aware of (and, therefore, on notice of) the claims of William Wiggins to the exclusive, fee simple ownership, as a surviving husband of Anna Wiggins, to attractive real property. The court also held that William's possession was known to plaintiffs at least by then to be exclusive as to them. Therefore, with these findings of fact, the rights of William and, thus, those claiming under him, including Parker Enterprises, Inc. Profit Sharing Plan (Parker), now the only record owner of the property, to title by adverse possession, were hereby confirmed in light of passage of more than twenty years between 1980 and 2006, the date when this action was commenced. Accordingly, Parker had demonstrated that it was the fee simple owner of the property and that the remaining plaintiffs have no right to the property. View "Conaway v. Hawkins, et al." on Justia Law

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This matter involved a supposed "asset protection trust" (Henry's trust) settled by and for the benefit of respondent where petitioner, BNY Mellon Trust of Delaware (BNY), held a demand note representing a several hundred thousand dollar loan BNY had made to respondent, secured by the assets of his mother's estate and trust. At issue was whether BNY was entitled to summary judgment on the issue of breach of fiduciary duty in its management of Henry's trust. The court held that respondents failed to articulate a theory, and have failed to allege any specific facts, which would indicate that BNY acted in bad faith. The court also held that because respondent had failed to allege facts indicating that BNY's decision to pledge trust assets, and to liquidate and hold trust assets in cash, were taken in bad faith, summary judgment on the remaining fiduciary claims was appropriate. View "The Irrevocable Asset Protection Trust of Henry C. Rohlf" on Justia Law