The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania has rejected an attempt by the state’s Attorney General to close down a volunteer fire company that had been prohibited from fighting fires in its community and to force the transfer of its assets to a different company continuing to serve the area.  The Court rejected the AG’s claim that all of the assets of the decertified company were held “in trust” and should be transferred under the cy pres provisions of the state’s Trust Code when it became “impracticable” for it to pursue its mission.

The total number of donor advised funds and total value of their assets continued to grow significantly in 2018, according to the latest annual report by the National Philanthropic Trust.

A private family foundation has been allowed to proceed with a suit to recover more than $1.1 million allegedly misappropriated by the trustee of a family trust that named the foundation as the residuary beneficiary of a woman’s wealth.   A federal District Court in Alabama, applying Florida law, has allowed the Foundation to proceed on a series of theories.

Who decides whether a member of a nonprofit membership corporation has violated the association’s rules to the extent that he should be expelled from the group?

A lawyer who arranged the transfer of settlement funds in a class action case into an endowment at St. John’s University in Minnesota has no standing to contest the University’s alleged failure to comply with conditions of the gift under the Uniform Prudent Management of Institutional Funds (“UPMIFA”), a state appellate court has ruled. It is the lawyer’s second defeat in trying to enforce guidelines for administering a Fellowship in Ethics that he had negotiated with the University.

A trustee and personal representative of the estate of the settlor of a trust has standing to enforce the terms of a charitable gift from the trust, an appellate court in Michigan has ruled.  It has reversed a trial court decision denying standing to the trustee.

Anthony DeFrancesco is a long-time employee of the Houston Astros baseball organization and in 2017 was manager of its AAA minor league affiliate.  After the Astros won the 2017 World Series, the Astros gave him a bonus of $28,151.26.

DeFrancisco was in the process of a divorce and the question arose whether the bonus was considered community property to be divided with his wife.  His wife claimed that it was.