Victory for Trustee In Litigation Over Asset Distribution from Multi-Million Dollar Trust

Jim Sipchen, John Scheid, Matt Tibble, and Kelly Franklin recently secured a victory in the Chancery Division of the Circuit Court of Cook County on behalf of a trustee of a multi-million-dollar trust in a dispute involving distributions made to the trust beneficiaries. A beneficiary had challenged the trustee’s distributions claiming that he was underpaid, and that others were improperly given priority and overpaid from the trust assets. The Chancery court rejected the beneficiary’s arguments and construction of the trust instrument and entered a declaratory judgment in favor of the trustee. The court agreed with the trustee’s interpretation of the trust instrument and upheld the trustee’s payments as proper and in conformance with the trust instrument.