Business & Estate Litigation Verdicts & Settlements
Estate Litigation for Intent of Family Trust
A member of one of NJ’s most prominent families established a large trust. That trust provided for 30 years of distributions to local charities and then for distributions to the man’s descendants. After the trust was created, a son of the creator of the trust acknowledged paternity of a child he believed was not his as part of his divorce settlement with the mother of the child. The child and the son of the creator never saw each other again. When it came time for the trust to be distributed to the creator’s descendants, the child, who was now a grown woman, asked for a share of the trust. Our estate and commercial litigation attorneys represented the son of the creator in this case that was litigated for approximately seven years, all the way to the Supreme Court of New Jersey. The matter recently settled. For further information, please contact our Business & Estate Litigation Attorneys
Trustee Removal Litigation
Our lawyers were hired by a number of beneficiaries of two multi-million dollar trusts to obtain the removal of one of the three trustees on the grounds of conflict of interest, breach of duty of loyalty to the beneficiaries, partiality to one beneficiary over others, failure to communicate with the beneficiaries, and that the other trustees had lost confidence and trust in their fellow trustee. After being hard fought for approximately one year, this case settled with an outcome favorable to our clients. For further information, please contact our Business & Estate Litigation Attorneys
Director/Officer Sued for Breach of Fiduciary Duty in Corporate Governance Litigation
A director of a charitable foundation sued our client, also a director and the CEO of the foundation, alleging that he breached his fiduciary duty to the foundation by making unwise investments. The plaintiff sought to surcharge our client personally for millions of dollars of losses sustained by the foundation’s investments. Our defense was that there was no negligence, rather the investments were proper and losses sustained as a result of market declines. After a lengthy trial, the judge found no wrongdoing on the part of our client and dismissed the lawsuit. For further information, please contact our Business & Estate Litigation Attorneys
$4+ Million "Family Farm" Estate Litigation
When the patriarch of the family farm passed away, he willed the property equally to his three grown children. One wanted to work the farm with her husband, but could not afford to buy out her siblings at market value. So she negotiated a contract for a below-market purchase and very favorable mortgage terms in exchange for sharing the profits of any eventual sale of the property down the road. Over time the farmland became very valuable. The farmer sibling secretly transferred ownership of the property to a private holding company and sold the development rights without sharing the profits promised to her other siblings. Our business litigation attorneys uncovered this scheme and built a case that led to a quick, favorable settlement for our clients. For further information, please contact our Business & Estate Litigation Attorneys
Cause-of-Death Estate Litigation in Airplane Accident
A pilot, with his wife on board, crashed his small, private plane, killing them both. Our client, the estate of the pilot, asserted that collision with birds caused the tragic deaths. However the pilot’s stepchildren alleged that the pilot failed to disclose a medical condition that caused him to black out and crash the plane. After full investigation, there was evidence on both sides. Therefore, the matter was settled by our attorneys in an amount that recognized the crash could have been caused by a bird strike. For further information, please contact our Business & Estate Litigation Attorneys