AND ONE LAWYER BEGAT YET MORE LAWYERS
In a lawsuit which could have been prevented by more precise legal
drafting, the lawyer who had "prepared" the standard form trust document gave the following testimony, as transcribed by the court reporter.
"Typically, those contest clauses--I've not done a lot of research on those, whether they hold up in court or not, and it would be my best guess that if there was a contest raised and there was fraud, duress... or some very valid circumstances, I would say probably the contest clause would not be upheld."
The same lawyer, who specializes in trusts and estates, testified that, "I guess I'm--I'm more in an administrative mode, as opposed to a very technical mode." He was aware, and further testified that, "It"s--the design of a contest clause is to avoid litigation..." No such luck here.
The court did not find "fraud, duress... or some very valid circumstances."
Such a finding should have ended the case. Here, yet more legalistic vagaries opportuned litigation. Like, "What does it mean to 'wind down' a trust?" The case went to the Appellate Court.
Despite the clearly expressed intentions of the husband and wife trust "settlors," the trust lawyer left fertile ground for future litigation. Ambiguous language, use of a "one size fits all" form, and a not very "technical" trust attorney resulted in a document litterred with legal
poison pills.
The million-dollar estate was reduced over 25% by frivolous lawsuits. Stated differently, two lifetimes of savings were unnecessarily dissipated
as a result of sloppy work by a "specialist" attorney.
Case number or transcript pages on request. Dr. Hanson can review your legal documents, of any type, for these kinds of "poison pills" and perversions of plain English.
