Lead Stories

Overturning a 1965 decision holding that extrinsic evidence was inadmissible to reform a will that is unambiguous on its face, a unanimous Supreme Court of California has held that an unambiguous will may be reformed to conform to the testator’s intent if the claimants establish by clear and convincing evidence that the will contains a mistake of intent and also establish the testator’s actual specific intent at the time the will was drafted.  The Court says it is joining a small but growing number of states that are modernizing their rules to more accurately fulfill the testator’s int

A bank trustee has been found not liable for breach of fiduciary duty or breach of contract when a $1.9 million charitable remainder annuity trust (a “CRAT”) designed to provide a 7.5% annual payout to the annuitants for life was totally exhausted in 11 years.  An appellate court in Georgia has ruled that the bank neither violated its fiduciary duty within the applicable statute of limitations period nor breached its contract with the beneficiaries.  (Wells Fargo Bank v. Cook, Ct.

The general liability insurance policy of the Northumberland Hunt Club in Virginia provides coverage not only for the Club itself, but also for any of its members “with respect to their liability for [the Club’s] activities or activities they perform on [the Club’s] behalf.”  But the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed a trial court decision holding that it doesn’t provide coverage for a club member who fired at a deer near a public highway and injured a passerby.  (Marks v.

A religious association that falsely purported to be a Roman Catholic Benedictine monastery has been ordered to pay more than $71,000 in punitive damages to a couple who made substantial payments to the association on the basis of the misrepresentation.  An appellate court in Connecticut has affirmed a trial court decision that also ordered the association to pay more than $207,000 in compensatory damages. (Wagner v.

When Sister George Marie Attea, a long-time professed nun of the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph in Buffalo, NY, died in 2014, she left a will and a probate estate of nearly $2 million, to be divided among her brothers, the husband of her deceased sister, the Congregation, and a number of Catholic charities. 

An attorney who served on the board of directors and then as Executive Director of a residential school for children with autism is not disqualified from representing a family claiming mistreatment of their child more than 5 years after the lawyer left the school.  A federal District Court in California has ruled that there is no “substantial relationship” between his role with the school and the issues of the current litigation.  (