Blumberg

— This case is a dispute about the administration of a family trust and the interpretation of trust documents. At the conclusion of a bench trial, the court decided in favor of plaintiff Adam J. Blumberg, the stepgrandson of defendant Gloria M. Minthorne. Gloria was ordered by the court to file an accounting and quitclaim certain property to Adam. Gloria appealed. She quitclaimed that property to her daughter and failed to file the accounting.

Adam moved to dismiss the appeal, citing the disentitlement doctrine. We agree with Adam that this is one of the rare cases where applying this doctrine is appropriate due to Gloria’s flagrant violation of the court’s orders. The appeal is therefore dismissed.

I

FACTS

The Minthorne Family Living Trust (the trust) was signed by spouses Gloria and Ralph Minthorne on February 19, 2008, soon after Ralph suffered a stroke. Both had previous estate plans, written in 2007. They had been married since 2006, when Ralph was 75 and Gloria was 61.

With respect to the trust, Gloria and Ralph were both settlors; Gloria alone was named as trustee. The parties both had assets and adult children from prior marriages. Adam was one of Ralph’s…