Taxation & Estate Planning

Cincinnati Bengals Probate Fight Update

By Joel A. Schoenmeyer

Last year I blogged about the fight over the estate of Cincinnati Bengals founder Austin E. "Dutch" Knowlton. Evidently the fight is over, and his kids lost. Here is the article.

This was essentially a Will contest, involving allegations of undue influence, lack of capacity, and forgery. Those cases are hard to win in the best scenarios, and Mr. Knowlton's kids didn't have the best scenario. For one thing, the kids had apparently been disinherited since 1971 (so dad lacked capacity or was unduly influenced for 30 years?). For another, the beneficiary of the estate isn't a person (who could potentially be perceived as greedy or corrupt) -- it's a charitable foundation.

Full post as published by Death and Taxes Blog on December 06, 2007 (boomark / email).