Lead Stories

An appellate court in Michigan has reversed a trial court decision granting summary judgment to the former president of a family foundation who was being sued by his brother, a former director of the foundation, for breach of fiduciary duty.  The trial court had said that the plaintiff brother had failed to show evidence of a breach of duty.  The Court of Appeals said he hadn’t been able to show evidence because the trial court had granted a protective order against discovery of the evidence he needed to show.

A fiscal sponsor is not liable for breach of contract with its sponsored organization and has no fiduciary duty to the organization when the sponsored program goes bad, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals has affirmed.  It has denied claims of the sponsored organization and granted summary judgment to the community foundation that had reluctantly agreed to take on the project.

A world-renowned Harvard chemist has been denied advanced payment of legal fees to defend against charges of making false statements to a governmental agency and failing to report all of his income for tax purposes under the indemnification policy of Harvard University. 

The Build Back Better Act recently passed by the House of Representatives and sent to the Senate contains innumerable highly publicized programs that will provide billions of dollars in grants for nonprofit organizations.  But it included two unheralded provisions that would specifically aid nonprofit local journalism and allow colleges and universities to reduce or eliminate the special excise tax on endowment earnings.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has reversed an appellate court decision and has held that a named beneficiary of a trust has standing to contest the actions of a trustee even where a decision would not affect the beneficiary’s annual payout from the trust.  It has held that a violation of the trustee’s duty which affects the beneficiary’s equitable interest in the trust property makes relief available that is equitable in nature, even where the beneficiary cannot demonstrate that she suffered, or will suffer, a monetary loss.

After years of uncertainty about the registration requirements for GoFundMe pages, Facebook solicitations, or other internet-based crowd-fundraising methods, California has passed amendments to its charitable solicitation registration act to cover what it calls “charitable fundraising platforms” and “platform charities” and to bring them under regulation by the state Attorney General.