Taxation & Estate Planning

Estate of Talty and Breach of Fiduciary Duty

By Joel A. Schoenmeyer

"Fiduciary duty" is one of those concepts that's essential to probate litigation, but is somewhat hard to explain. There's no statute in Illinois that says "these things, and these things alone, constitute a breach of fiduciary duty." Instead, fiduciary duty law is cobbled together from Illinois caselaw.

The Estate of Talty case give us an example of what a court (in this case, the Third District Appellate Court) views as a breach of fiduciary duty. You can find the case here, as a PDF. The case pitted a decedent's executor (his brother and business partner) against the decedent's widow. The case revolved largely around appraisals of the business owned by the decedent and his brother, and the court found that the executor abused his discretion in obtaining lowball appraisals and hiding more accurate appraisals from the widow.

-----

Blog posts will be light to non-existent between now and January 7, as I work on my article and do a bit of wassailing. My sister's blog does a nice job of documenting what constitutes a Schoenmeyer Family Christmas (vodka slush, my Great Aunt Irlitta's Christmas Strawberries, etc.). Happy Holidays!

Full post as published by Death and Taxes Blog on December 21, 2007 (boomark / email).