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Capabilities / Trust, Estate, & Fiduciary Litigation

Trust, Estate, & Fiduciary Litigation

For Husch Blackwell, it's a matter of trust.

Our Trust, Estate, & Fiduciary Litigation team combines deep legal knowledge with decades of litigation experience to resolve high-stakes trust, estate, and fiduciary duty matters through mediation, arbitration, or trial.

Husch Blackwell's trust, estate, and fiduciary litigation attorneys counsel clients on best practices for administering trusts and estates to minimize risk, avoid litigation, and effectively settle disputes without court intervention. But when estate and fiduciary litigation is unavoidable, our attorneys are zealous advocates for the banks, trust companies, trustees, executors, personal representatives, beneficiaries, heirs, creditors, and tax-exempt organizations that we represent.

Our guidance to clients in the sector of trusts, estates, and fiduciary litigation includes:

  • Beneficiaries’ rights
  • Best practices
  • Breach of fiduciary duty claims
  • Construction and reformation of estate planning documents
  • Creditors’ rights
  • Identification and recovery of trust and estate assets
  • Income, estate, gift, and generation-skipping tax issues
  • Marital property rights
  • Will and trust contests
  • Guardianships

Representative Experience

  • Obtained jury verdict for beneficiaries in three-week undue influence trial regarding $35 million estate.
  • Represented trustees in complex trust contest for trust with assets exceeding $80 million. Matter was successfully settled through mediation.
  • Reached multimillion-dollar settlement of an estate dispute and wrongful death action on behalf of a beneficiary client.
  • Negotiated settlement of contested trust action on behalf of trustee in matter involving allegations of conversion and fraudulent modification of estate planning documents.
  • Favorably resolved probate litigation involving complex marital property issues and incompetency allegations.
  • Represented trustee in complex trust lawsuit involving trusts with combined assets valued at more than $100 million in stock of a billion dollar plus privately held company. Matter was successfully settled through mediation.
  • Obtained summary judgments in multiple will contests.
  • Obtained a favorable settlement for beneficiaries of $40 million estate that would have otherwise gone to the assistant executive director of the retirement community where the decedent resided.
  • Obtained a favorable settlement on behalf of beneficiary, executor, trustee, managing member, and general partner of complex estates holding assets valued more than $25 million.
  • Obtained a guardianship to protect elderly widow and her estate valued at approximately $100 million.
  • Obtained a judicial partition of a 300-acre development site.
  • Represented Midwestern trust company in seeking approval of trustee fees in the face of numerous allegations of breach of fiduciary duty asserted by beneficiaries, first in an arbitration spanning more than two years. In his 88-page opinion, the arbitrator ruled in favor of the trustee on all issues. Defended the same trust company in a subsequent probate court trial, which resulted in a 127-page decision following 20 months of deliberation. The court found in favor of the trustee on all key issues in the case.
  • Defended corporate and individual trustees in a 60-day arbitration against numerous claims of breach of fiduciary duty, concluding in a decision in favor of clients on all claims.
  • Defended individual trustee in an action involving multiple trusts and numerous claims of breach of fiduciary duty concluding in the plaintiffs dismissing their case.
  • Represented directors and officers of bank in negligence and breach of fiduciary duty action brought by FDIC.
  • Represented company and controlling member of LLC in wrongful discharge and breach of fiduciary duty lawsuit. Obtained favorable settlement for client.
  • Advised a Fortune 500 bank holding company regarding trust and estate litigation matters.
  • Obtained a judicial discharge for co-trustees of $6m trust with disgruntled beneficiaries.
Webinar | September 30, 2020
Deep Dive into Fiduciary Developments
Media Mentions | September 13, 2022
BizTimes: Rising Stars in Law: Margaret Heitkamp
Media Mentions | January 23, 2022
BizTimes: Notable Women in Law: Jennifer Olk