Suing a Family Trust

Friday, August 21st, 2009

Mary Bucksbaum Scanlan, an heiress of Bucksbaum shopping-mall clan has sued the family trust as well as its lawyers for breach of fiduciary duty and malpractice.  She blamed them for investment losses from her trust shares worth $300 million. 

The 40-year-old is a daughter of Martin Bucksbaum, who’s the late co-founder of General Growth Properties Inc.  She filed this lawsuit in Chicago U.S. District Court naming attorneys Earl Melamed and Marshall Eisenberg with their law firm named Neal, Gerber, and Eisenberg LLP.  Also included in the suit is General Trust Co., Bucksbaum family trust as defendants.

The attorney representing Melamed, Eisenberg, and their law firm is Atty. Stephen Novack, who claims that losses suffered by Bucksbaum family trust were truly caused by the souring stock market and the economy.  General Growth is based in Chicago - it manages and owns over 200 malls in the U.S. but it filed for bankruptcy (Chapter 11) protection in April carrying a debt load of $27 billion.

The lawsuit of Mrs. Scanlan alleges the attorneys (also the trustees) of breach in their fiduciary duties since they kept most of the assets of the trust in General Growth stock during the time that stock has declined in 2007 from $67 to $1 last year.  Allegedly, the attorneys also failed to inform her about the loans made to executives of General Growth with a total of $100 million.

Tags: attorneys, Bucksbaum, Chicago, Earl Melamed, Family Trust, General Growth Properties, heiress, law, lawsuit, lawyers, malpractice, Marshall Eisenberg, Martin Bucksbaum, Mary Bucksbaum Scanlan, Stephen Novack, stock, sue, trust
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Judge Finds Widow Lacks Merit to Sue

Sunday, July 12th, 2009

A Manhattan judge ruled that a widow’s claim for a $9 million malpractice suit for her husband’s attorneys have no merit.  Marilyn Shafer, Supreme Court Justice, ruled that there was no privity between Jean Sorenson Leff, the widow, and Richard Cunningham and William Bush, the attorneys.

Shafer discounted the argument of Leff that occasional interactions between her and the attorneys, which includes her own will preparation, created an attorney-client relationship with regards to her husband’s estate planning.  Shafer wrote that “even if the plaintiff has a subjective belief of an attorney-client relationship, it’s not enough evidence that there is one.”

Due to this, a question was raised on who can sue for malpractice in New York when the attorneys make mistakes in estate planning.  The chair of wills and estates department for Schlesinger Gannon & Lazetera answered, “New York is one of the very few states left with privity doctrine.  Only the decedent has the privity and the right to sue - not even the executor or administrator of the estate could charge malpractice to the attorneys.  Fortunately, more and more states are moving to abandon that doctrine.”

Tags: attorney-client relationship, attorneys, Jean Sorenson Leff, malpractice, Manhattan, Marilyn Shafer, New York, privity, Richard Cunningham, Supreme Court Justice, William Bush
Posted in Estate Planning, Wills | No Comments »