BROKEN TRUST!

In the Matter of the Neva M. Strom Irrevocable Trust III, 203 A.D. 3d 1255 (3rd Dep’t March 3, 2022):

The Appellate Division 3rd Dept. affirmed the Surrogate’s decision in which we successfully invoked an In Terrorem clause in a Trust. As a result the entire corpus of the Trust was paid to our client, Dina Grant. The Court held that her sister, the primary beneficiary of the Trust, had violated the In Terrorem Clause by conducting discovery in a separate lawsuit whose primary purpose was tailored to attack the Trust. The sister claimed that the discovery was appropriate in the ancillary suit and that her conduct was not in derogation of the Trust. The Court disagreed. As a result the offending sister forfeited any disposition to her under the terms of the Trust in our client’s benefit.