A claim by 26 intestate heirs seeking to invalidate a $1.45 million family educational trust, which would make the money available to them, has been denied by an appellate court in Louisiana. The Court has held that the language of the will was sufficient to establish the trust. (Succession of Henderson, Ct. of App., LA, No. 50,475-CA, 2/24/16.)
Counsel for Penn State University, who purported to represent university employees at a grand jury investigation into the Jerry Sandusky sexual abuse scandal, could not provide adequate counsel to them as individuals and was incompetent to testify as to her communications with them, an appellate court in Pennsylvania has ruled.
A bank trustee that took a little more than two months to distribute trust funds to charities during the precipitous drop in stock prices in late 2008 is not liable for a breach of fiduciary duty under the circumstances of the case, an appellate court in California has affirmed. (Estate of Gilliland, Hi-Desert Memorial Hospital v. Union Bank of California, Ct. of App. CA, Second Dist., Div.
Trustees of Girard College, a free elementary and secondary school for disadvantaged youth in Philadelphia, have been denied a request to eliminate their residential and high school programs temporarily in order to rebuild their reserves to assure the long-term viability of their programs. The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court has affirmed an Orphans’ Court decision denying the request. (Estate of Stephen Girard, No. 2254 C.D. 2014, 1/21/16.)
An appellate court in New York has permitted three churches to remove restrictions on permissible investments imposed by the same donor in his will. The donor had said that the churches could invest the bequests only in insured bank accounts and government securities. (In Re: Estate of Chamberlin, Sup. Ct., App. Div., Third Dept., NY, 1/7/16.)
Members of Congress who were outraged that the IRS held up applications by conservative organizations for 501(c)(4) social welfare exemption, which arose in part because the IRS did not know what type and how much political activity is permitted for a (c)(4) organization, have prohibited the IRS from finalizing regulations defining the type and extent of permitted political activity before the 2016 Presidential election.
