Andrew Mayoras posts a good story here about Bo Schembechler’s son suing his step-mom over his dad’s trust.
Andrew writes:
From an estate planning perspective, Bo did everything right to avoid a family fight after he passed. He created a living trust, which was quite detailed and left the income from his assets to his wife, Kathryn, passing from there to his son Glenn III (known as “Shemy”), and then onto his grandchildren and Kathryn’s grandchildren.
He chose Kathryn as his successor trustee to manage his trust after he passed. From an estate planning perspective, Bo did everything right to avoid a family fight after he passed. He created a living trust, which was quite detailed and left the income from his assets to his wife, Kathryn, passing from there to his son Glenn III (known as “Shemy”), and then onto his grandchildren and Kathryn’s grandchildren.
He chose Kathryn as his successor trustee to manage his trust after he passed.
Sounds fine to me… Apparently though the trust was specific that Kathryn had to report on the trust’s assets every so often to Shemy which, according the to the complaint (which is available
here as a PDF) she hasn’t been doing.
Shemy’s case is bolstered by
Ohio Revised Code Section 5808.13 which requires a Trustee to
“keep the current beneficiaries of the trust reasonably informed about the administration of the trust and of the material facts necessary for them to protect their interests” by annually sending to all “
the current benficiaries, and to other beneficiaries who request it, at least annually and at the termination of the trust, a report of the trust property, liabilities, receipts, and disbursements, including the source and amount of the trustee’s compensation, a listing of the trust assets, and, if feasible, the trust assets’ respective market values.”According to the complaint, Kathryn hasn’t disclosed anything since Bo’s death in 2006. Oops.
This one seems pretty open and shut to me. I have to say though, its an awfully gentle complaint. There’s only one count that asks the court to force Kathryn to render an accounting (and for attorney’s fees obviously) but they don’t ask to have Kathryn removed. Under these circumstances that’s usually my first advice… Considerations of family harmony, who the named Successor Trustee is, the procedure for replacing Trustees, etc., are additional bits of info that I’m ignorant about so the gentle approach may be appropriate here… But once you’ve sued someone in federal court you’re usually not also thinking about what to get them for christmas, especially when christmas is about a month away.
Despite coaching “that team up north” for many years, Coach Schembechler’s ties to Columbus, Ohio run deep. I was dissapointed to see this happening but I wish Shemy well in his apparent efforts to honor his father’s testamentary wishes. That being said, I wish both parties luck in holding the family together.
And ok, that being said, I’m still looking forward to OSU kicking the holy hell out of Michigan this weekend. O-H!
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