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Factual Background:

Husband and Wife were married in August 1987, had two children together, and separated in July 2007.  Wife filed a petition for dissolution of marriage.         

St. Louis County Circuit Court, J. Wallace, Held:          

The judgment of dissolution of marriage was entered on March 1, 2010.   Husband and Wife were each awarded half the value of the trust accounts held at Regions Bank.  Husband raised three points on appeal.

Court of Appeals, PER CURIAM, Held:

Affirmed as modified.  As to part of his second point on appeal, Husband argued the trial court did not have authority to distribute the trust accounts to him and Wife as sole and separate property because the two children were the sole beneficiaries, and therefore, had sole ownership in the trusts.  Wife agreed and requested this court modify the dissolution judgment to remove the division and award of the trust accounts.  This Court recognized that although a court can enter a decree of dissolution that distributes property, it does not have authority to enter a decree dividing property not owed by either the husband or the wife.  Therefore, this part of point two was granted. The court found no error in Husband’s remaining arguments, which it did not detail in its opinion.

Factual Background:         

William Knichel executed a durable power of attorney and a will in 2002, naming his two grown children as his agents and leaving his entire estate to them.  In 2003, Knichel changed the primary beneficiary on his life insurance policy to his companion of twenty years and caretaker, Anita Madsen, and transferred his home and one bank account in joint tenancy to her.  In 2004, Knichel had an attorney, Charles Amen of the Purcell and Amen law firm, prepare a new will and powers of attorney and create a trust that was intended to hold Mr. Knichel’s retirement assets and distribute them in three equal shares to Madsen and his children.  In the trust, Amen’s firm was named “special co-trustee,” granting similar rights and duties as those exercised by a standard trustee plus special additional powers.

Amen and Madsen began transferring Knichel’s retirement assets into the trust account, but UBS denied the request to transfer the UBS IRA.  Knichel died in October 2004.  When Knichel’s children requested an accounting in December 2005 and again in March 2006, Amen provided them with an inaccurate one that was incomplete in various aspects and also erroneously included the UBS IRA as a trust asset.  Ultimately, UBS distributed the UBS IRA proceeds directly to the children.  At Amen’s instruction, Madsen made an equivalent distribution from the other trust assets to herself, and paid herself a $6,000 fee as trustee and $2,400 to Amen for his representation of her as trustee.

In June 2007, having yet to receive an accurate accounting, the children filed suit against both Madsen and Amen claiming Madsen had breached her powers of attorney and fiduciary duties, unduly influenced Knichel’s asset collection, and unjustly enriched herself at their expense.  The children also sought to remove Amen’s firm as special co-trustee and counsel to Madsen in any capacity due to compounded conflicts of interest.  Madsen and Amen filed a motion to dismiss.

St. Louis City Circuit Court, J. Dowd, Held:

The trial court denied the motion to dismiss and set another hearing to focus on Amen’s potential conflicts of interest.  The trial court found Madsen had violated her fiduciary duties, removed her as trustee, and ordered her to forfeit her trustee fees and reimburse the trust for the distributions she made to herself and Amen.

The Court noted Amen, as special co-trustee, owed the same fiduciary duty to the children as Madsen had.  Therefore, once Amen began to advise and serve Madsen, he breached his fiduciary duty by not acting impartial to all beneficiaries.  The trial court removed Amen’s firm as special co-trustee and amended the trust to omit the position.

Amen challenged the trial court’s judgment asserting there was insufficient evidence to find he breached his fiduciary duty, and that the trial court abused its discretion by eliminating the special co-trustee provision.  Neither Madsen nor the children challenged the Court’s judgment.  The children filed a motion to dismiss on the basis that Amen lacked standing.

Court of Appeals, P.J. Aherns, Held:

Dismissed for lack of standing.   The Court noted that this was not the first case where the law firm of Purcell and Amen has attempted to reinstate itself as co-trustee on appeal against the wishes of the beneficiaries.  In In Re Forbeck, Amen’s partner attempted to appeal the dismissal of a guardianship petition that named his firm as “special co-trustee.”  The Court found he lacked standing.  Even though that was a guardianship case, and, therefore, differed from this case, it was cited with other Missouri precedent regarding probate matters to guide this decision.

Additionally, because chapter 456 of the Missouri Uniform Trust Code (MUTC) does not address appellate standing, the general appeals statute, section 512.020, applied and states the right to appeal belongs to: “any party to a suit aggrieved by any judgment of any trial court in any civil cause.”

Amen claimed that he was aggrieved and relied on Section 456.1-103 of the MUTC which includes fiduciaries within the definition of “interested persons.”  The definition of “interested persons” clearly enables a fiduciary or personal representative to participate in litigation on behalf of trust beneficiaries.  Here, neither Madsen nor the children challenged the Court’s judgment.

To determine when a party is “aggrieved,” the Court looked to Betty G. Weldon Revocable Trust ex. Rel. Vivion v. Weldon ex rel. Weldon, 231 S.W.3d 158,168 (MoApp.W.D. 2007).  Under Weldon, a party is “aggrieved” when the judgment operates prejudicially and directly on his personal or property rights or interest.

In this case, Amen’s right to collect fees was not a beneficial interest, but compensation allowed by law.  His personal accreditation and reputation, which he asserted would be jeopardized by his removal as special co-trustee for breach of fiduciary duty, is not a pecuniary interest either.  Therefore, Amen’s grievances provided no legal basis for recognizing Amen as an “aggrieved” party. “A party who has not been aggrieved has no standing to appeal.” Weldon.  Because Amen did not have standing to appeal, his appeal was dismissed.

Factual Background:

In 1997, the settlor, Stephen M. Gunther, established the Stephen M. Gunther Revocable Living Trust and named J. Barry Gunther as the initial trustee.  In 2006, the settlor amended the trust, naming himself as the trustee and changed the residuary beneficiary upon his death to his then-living descendants, subject to a contingent trust for any beneficiaries under the age of 25.  The settlor died in March 2009, leaving his wife, Angel, and two minor children beneficiaries.  One year after the settlor’s death, the beneficiaries filed a petition for accounting. They sought accounting of the trust from its inception on 1997 until its amendment in 2006 and from settlor’s death to date.                    

St. Louis County Circuit Court, J. Ross, Held:

The trial court concluded that the trustee had no fiduciary relationship with the beneficiaries before the settlor’s death, and therefore, the beneficiaries were not entitled to an accounting of trust transactions prior to that date.  Summary judgment was awarded against the plaintiff beneficiaries and in favor of the defendant trustee.  The beneficiaries appealed.

Court of Appeals, J. Mooney, Held:

Affirmed.  While finding no Missouri case addressing the precise question of whether the beneficiaries are entitled to an accounting covering the years the settlor was alive, the Court looked to Section 456.6-603.1 of the Missouri Uniform Trust Code which provides, “while a trust is revocable and the settlor has capacity to revoke the trust, rights of the beneficiaries are subject to the control of, and the duties of the trustee are owed exclusively to, the settlor.”  Therefore, while a trust is revocable, all rights that beneficiaries would otherwise possess are subject to settlor’s control.

While pointing out it has no precedential value, the reasoning in the Alabama case of  Ex parte Synovus Trust Co., 41 So.3d 70, 74 (Ala. 2009) was found to be persuasive in this case as well.  In Synovus, the parents, who were settlors and beneficiaries of two revocable trusts, and their children, who were also beneficiaries of the two trusts, sued the trustee and other defendants for breach of fiduciary duty and other claims.  The Alabama Court found that regardless of whether the children had suffered injuries to their rights as trust beneficiaries, the defendants owed duties exclusively to the settlors/parents during this time.

Similarly in this case, the Court found the trial court was correct in determining the trustee had no fiduciary relationship with the beneficiaries until settlor’s death, and thus, owed no duty to the beneficiaries to give them an accounting before that date.

Factual Background:

Brother and Siblings were beneficiaries of a trust.  Brother filed a petition seeking an accounting, removal of one sibling as trustee, and appointment of a new trustee.  The parties attended a mediation and agreed to a settlement whereby $475,000 and a ranch would be given to Brother in exchange for giving up all further interest in the trust.  Siblings gave brother title to the ranch and were prepared to give him the money upon execution of formal settlement documents.  Brother never executed the documents.

Siblings filed a petition for specific performance to enforce the settlement and Brother counterclaimed for his initial demands.  Brother filed a motion to dismiss the Siblings’ petition; the motion was denied.  Siblings then filed a motion for summary judgment on their specific performance claim.

St. Louis County Circuit Court, Whittington, J., Held:

The court granted Siblings’ motion for summary judgment.  Brother appealed.

Court of Appeals, Romines, J., Held:

Affirmed.  Brother argued the trial court erred in denying his motion to dismiss the petition for specific performance.  First, he argued that because the trial court dismissed the underlying suit without prejudice, the settlement agreement was no longer valid.  However, no authority suggests a valid agreement is nullified merely by a dismissal without prejudice.  In fact, Rule 67.01 specifically permits bringing another action to enforce an agreement.

Second, Brother argued Siblings abandoned the settlement agreement by requesting additional terms or it was improper because the terms of the settlement were disputed.  However, the facts show Siblings intended to be further bound by the settlement upon formal execution of the settlement.  Further, while the settlement did not specify whether the $475,000 would come from the trust or one of the siblings, this does not render the entire settlement unenforceable.  The court can supply this missing provision by reviewing the evidence in record.

Factual Background:

Settlor executed a revocable living trust in 1992.  In 2009, Defendants filed suit to remove Plaintiff as trustee.  The action was resolved by consent judgment signed by the parties.  The consent judgment warranted that there were no amendments to the trust.  In 2010, Plaintiff filed suit to determine the validity of an amendment to the trust he allegedly found after signing the consent judgment.  Defendants filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings.

St. Louis County Circuit Court, Ross, J., Held:

The court granted Defendants’ motion for judgment on the pleadings based on judicial estoppel.  Plaintiff appealed.

Court of Appeals, Romines, J., Held:

Affirmed.  Plaintiff argued the trial court erred in that there were genuine issues of material fact.  Judicial estoppel prevents parties from taking one position in one proceeding to obtain benefits from that position in a later proceeding.

The court found the trial court’s decision was flawed because judicial estoppel does not apply where the party’s prior position was taken due to a good-faith mistake rather than a scheme to mislead and manipulate the court.  However, the court’s result was correct because the purported amendment was not properly delivered according to the terms of the trust.  Therefore, there was no proper amendment and the case was affirmed.