In a declaratory judgment or instructions action to determine intended beneficiaries of a trust and/or their relative equitable interests, should trustee defend its terms as written or take no sides?

Charles E. Rounds, Jr. - Suffolk University Law School
Contact

True, the trustee has a duty to defend the trust. See generally §6.2.6 of Loring and Rounds: A Trustee’s Handbook (2021), which section is reproduced in the appendix below. The trustee, however, also is saddled with a duty of impartiality, which is the subject of §6.2.5 of the handbook. Can these duties be reconciled when it comes to complaints for instruction and declaratory judgment actions? Should the trustee actively participate or assume a neutral posture? It depends. One California court in a 2020 decision explains: “[W]here an attack is being made upon the validity of a trust, the trustee has the duty of participating actively in its defense… [but where] he acts …merely as a defendant stakeholder, he ordinarily has neither duty nor right to so participate.” Wing v. Goldman Sachs Tr. Co., N.A., 851 S.E.2d 398 (N.C. Ct. App. 2020) (quoting Hershatter v. Colonial Trust Co., 73 A.2d 97, 101 (Conn. 1950)).

Please see full publication below for more information.

LOADING PDF: If there are any problems, click here to download the file.

DISCLAIMER: Because of the generality of this update, the information provided herein may not be applicable in all situations and should not be acted upon without specific legal advice based on particular situations.

© Charles E. Rounds, Jr. - Suffolk University Law School | Attorney Advertising

Written by:

Charles E. Rounds, Jr. - Suffolk University Law School
Contact
more
less

Charles E. Rounds, Jr. - Suffolk University Law School on:

Reporters on Deadline

"My best business intelligence, in one easy email…"

Your first step to building a free, personalized, morning email brief covering pertinent authors and topics on JD Supra:
*By using the service, you signify your acceptance of JD Supra's Privacy Policy.
Custom Email Digest
- hide
- hide