Blog: Trusts & Estates Legal Updates

Last month, my Weintraub colleagues and I had the pleasure of speaking at the Professional Fiduciary Association of California annual conference on the topic of the attorney-client privilege and its application to clients serving in a fiduciary capacity (trustee, executor, conservator, agent, etc.).

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Based on recent appellate cases, one of which is discussed below, the court’s scrutiny of conservators’ conduct and, specifically, private fiduciaries, is seemingly on the rise. Private fiduciaries acting as conservators should always remain focused on performing and charging only for those services that are consistent with the best interests of their conservatees. California case law continues to refine that understanding.

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Under California law, the laws of intestacy control who inherits when a person dies without having prepared a valid will or trust. These rules can be complicated particularly as remote or even unknown blood relatives may have a claim to assets of the decedent’s estate. However, these long lost relatives often must prove up their entitlement to inherit from the decedent’s estate.

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By Trusts & Estates

It was recently revealed that the late Paul Walker left his entire estate—valued at approximately $25 million—to his 15-year-old daughter, Meadow.

As reported, Paul Walker named his father as the executor of his will and his mother, Cheryl, as the guardian of Meadow’s person and now-$25 million estate. Prior to his death, Meadow lived with her father but now lives in Hawaii with her mother, Rebecca Soteros. Already, this decision is causing people to wonder why Paul would name someone other than Meadow’s biological mother as Meadow’s guardian.

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By Trusts & Estates

Over thirty-five years after Bing Crosby’s death, the California Court of Appeal put an end to the continuing battle over the Crooner’s right of publicity.

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The California Court of Appeal for the Sixth Appellate District issued a ruling Tuesday in Lintz v. Lintz, 2014 Cal. App. LEXIS 27 (6th Dist. January 14, 2014) adopting the reasoning of the Second Appellate District regarding the standard for legal capacity to execute a trust instrument (as announced by the Second Appellate District in Anderson v. Hunt, 196 Cal. App. 4th 722 (2d Dist. 2011)).

In Lintz, the Court concluded that the probate court erred by applying the testamentary capacity standard (i.e., Probate Code section 6100.5) to the trusts and trust amendments in question instead of the “sliding-scale contractual standard” outlined in Probate Code sections 810 through 812. In this case, as the Court noted, the trust instruments were “unquestionably more complex than a will or codicil. They addressed community property concerns, provided for income distribution during the life of the surviving spouse, and provided for the creation of multiple trusts, one contemplating estate tax consequences, upon the death of the surviving spouse.”

Family Drama

Casey Kasem’s three adult children from his first marriage have spent the last several months in L.A. County Superior Court fighting their stepmother, Jean, for control of their father’s personal affairs through a conservatorship proceeding.

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In most California civil cases, a party generally must wait until a trial court issues a final judgment before he or she can get through the doors of the Court of Appeal. While there are a few exceptions, this rule (sometimes called the one-final-judgment rule) prevents litigants from complaining to the appellate court about every ruling in a given case in piecemeal fashion. Even when they receive an appealable judgment, parties to an appeal often find that getting a decision from the reviewing court takes endurance and patience; e.g., the time from the notice of appeal to the decision frequently takes over a year.

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