Fiduciary Trust International v. Superior Court

INTRODUCTION

In 1992, Raymond Sandler, then an attorney at Sandler & Rosen, drafted wills for Willet Brown and his wife Betty Brown. Willet’s will established a marital trust that was expected to generate several million dollars in annual income. The will named Betty as the marital trust’s income beneficiary for life; upon her death, the principal of the trust was to be transferred into an “Exemption Equivalent Trust” that would benefit each of Willet’s four children. Betty’s will, in turn, left a large majority of her estate to the Exemption Equivalent Trust. After Willet died, Betty revoked the will that Sandler had prepared and drafted a new instrument transferring the large majority of her assets to a trust that was to benefit her daughter.

Following Betty’s death in 2011, a dispute arose between her personal representative—petitioner Fiduciary Trust International of California—and the marital trust trustees regarding whether the terms of Willet’s will required the trust to pay approximately $27 million in estate and inheritance taxes that were due on Betty’s assets. Fiduciary Trust filed a motion to disqualify Sandler & Rosen, arguing that the firm was barred from…