A resource for lawyers and the public in Massachusetts and New Hampshire for information on will contests, trust disputes, guardianships, conservatorships, elder exploitation, fiduciary duty claims, and other probate litigation disputes.
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Will and trust cases often implicate the interests of multiple parties, some of whom may wish to participate in the proceeding, but be unable or unwilling to engage counsel. By filing with the court an appearance form available on the New Hampshire Probate Court’s website and copying all other parties and their counsel on the filing, an […]
The Justices of the New Hampshire Supreme Court asked lots of penetrating questions in the oral argument (video link) in In re Estate of Mesiti, an interlocutory appeal presenting an important standing issue of first impression, namely, whether a child can contest a parent’s will without an allegation that he will benefit if he wins. As discussed in […]
I have the pleasure today of presenting with other panelists on “Trust Litigation: Trends and Developments” hosted by the New Hampshire Trust Council. The slides for my presentation are available here.
Congratulations to Frank Kenison and Bridget Denzer on their big win in Bonanno v. Bonanno and many thanks to them for sharing Judge David King’s Final Order, which is a great primer on NH law governing trust contests on undue influence and other grounds. In these cases, the alleged undue influencer almost always was in a confidential […]
As noted in a prior post by Ralph Holmes, in terrorem or “no-contest” provisions are becoming increasingly common in estate plans in New Hampshire. Such provisions are intended to discourage litigation and effect this purpose by calling for the forfeiture of a legatee’s interests in the will or trust in the event of an unsuccessful […]
I am delighted to report that the NH Supreme Court in In re Teresa E. Craig Living Trust ruled in our favor in a widely followed case that, if it had gone the other way, would have significantly unsettled NH trust law and practice. Craig presented the issue of whether the pretermitted heir statute, RSA 551:10, applies […]
Many of our cases involve actual or suspected financial exploitation of the elderly in which a claim is made that someone took advantage of the cognitive and/or emotional vulnerability of an older person to gain financial enrichment from “gifting” of assets, changes in financial accounts, and/or rewriting of estate plans. While the typical case involves […]
Power of attorney accounting actions are among the most common types of litigation in our practice. Effective January 1, 2018, New Hampshire adopted a new statute that made some significant changes and refinements to the law. Here is a recent article in the “Know the Law” series of the Union Leader that discusses the new law.
The NH Supreme Court’s recent decision in Ketteridge v. Martin Lord & Osman, P.A. strongly suggests that the Court will likely hold that an estate planning attorney does not owe a duty to intended beneficiaries of an estate plan to evaluate whether the client is being subjected to undue influence when the client makes a change to […]
On June 3, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver delivered a funny but eye-opening examination of the guardianship process in the United States. Bringing his trademark wit, John Oliver points out ways in which the guardianship system fails those vulnerable people it is designed to protect. People who watched the clip may wonder after watching […]
