Lead Stories

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.  (

A member seeking to restore his membership rights in a nonprofit club in North Dakota may sue individually and does not need others to support his claim, the Supreme Court of North Dakota has ruled.  It has reversed a trial court holding that an individual has to meet a threshold number of plaintiffs in order to bring suit.  (Marhula v. Grand Forks Curling Club, Supreme Ct. N.D., No.

When a bank trustee asked for guidance on how to distribute income from eight testamentary trusts left for the benefit of Bloomsburg Hospital in Pennsylvania, there wasn’t much debate about authorizing continued use of the trust income for the Hospital, even though the Hospital had been absorbed within a large regional healthcare system. 

California’s requirement to submit an unredacted list of major donors as part of its charitable solicitation registration materials does not violate the First Amendment, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled.  The Court has affirmed the denial of a preliminary injunction sought by a charity that wanted to remove the names of donors shown on Schedule B to the Form 990 that is a required part of the registration package.  (Center for Competitive Politics v.