Losing Trust

Last Friday I was able to attend an oral argument with one of the estate attorneys here at Dickinson Wright.  

Oral arguments are spoken to a judge or appellate court by a lawyer (or parties when representing themselves) of the legal reasons why they should prevail. Oral argument at the appellate level accompanies written briefs, which also advance the argument of each party in the legal dispute. Oral arguments can also occur during motion practice when one of the parties presents a motion to the court for consideration before trial, such as when the case is to be dismissed on a point of law, or when summary judgment may lie because there are no factual issues in dispute.

The case was about a dispute over a trust where one of the 20 beneficiaries of the trust refused to sign the accounting and filed against the trustee (a bank), stating that he was not informed and was mistreated by the bank. He said that he thought that the most recent list of items and recipients of them did not reflect his late fathers true wishes, and was trying to prove this to the judge. 

In this case, the attorney from the firm was defending the trustee/bank. He filed for a summary judgement. In law, a summary judgment (also judgment as a matter of law) is a judgment entered by a court for one party and against another party summarily, i.e., without a full trial. Such a judgment may be issued on the merits of an entire case, or on discrete issues in that case. Each side got a limited amount of time to make their case about why the judge should rule in their favor. 

What was interesting about this case was that first, the other side was representing himself which I honestly did not know you could do. This made it difficult for the other parties involved as he did not really know the rules and procedures of the court. The judge was surprisingly patient with him, explaining what would happen in court that day, but I think she got slightly annoyed at one point. Another thing, that struck me as different from the media, was that he was not actually present in court, but rather made his argument to the judge and other attorneys over the phone. Thirdly, there were three parties there which, so far, I have never seen in a show. Typically in a show, we see the standard two sides (attorney and client) in the courtroom. The other party in this case was another beneficiary of the trust,  who disagreed with the man who was fighting the distribution of the assets. 

In the end, the judge ruled right on the spot in favor of the trustee, This was very surprising as usually it takes a while before finding out the result of a case. Anyways, it was very fun to go down to the old courthouse!

Thanks for reading!