(612) 206-3701 info@lucerelegal.com

Lessons from the Tawdry Estate Battle of the Century

Lucere Legal helps families with careful estate planning
Categories: Estate Planning

Though I hardly consider myself a follower of the tawdry celebrity stories that come out of Hollywood, they sometimes prove to hold valuable lessons for us all. I’ve written recently of the passing of Casey Kasem and Robin Williams, two polar opposites when it came to their estate planning. But one case in particular has kept everyone’s attention, going on two decades now: the death of 89 year old Texas oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall and the calamitous court battles over his $1.6 billion estate, outlasting both of the initial contending parties—his wife of 14-months, the 27 year old Anna Nicole Smith, and his youngest son, Pierce Marshall. That case is back in the news again these days.

Attention-grabbing though that dollar amount is, the sad truth is that feuds have torn families apart for far more modest sums. Little causes more contention than money, so you must not only be sure to leave your loved ones with an estate that is enough to take care of them, but also structured so securely as to leave no room for conflict.

There’s more to learn from this story than the importance of not marrying a spouse who could be your great-grandchild. Here are vital lessons about estate planning that everyone should take with them.

1)  Choose the right attorney.  J. Howard Marshall’s estate planner of many years was never the impartial representative of the deceased that an estate planner is meant to be. Though he never faced any consequences, his reputation in court showed him to have, in the words of U.S. District Judge David Carter, “a distinct disinterest in rules or ethics.” Were the last minute changes made to the will at the behest of Pierce and lawyer truly the will of Marshall? We may never know. Find someone you can count on.

2)  Make sure private matters stay that way.  The court battles that raged on through the years put the dirty laundry of the entire family on display. It doesn’t have to be this way. The most important way to keep your family’s affairs private is to make your estate plan airtight. Adopting a trust-based plan allows you to avoid the public probate court process, among other benefits. Furthermore, if there’s no dispute—or at least no grounds for legal challenge—it won’t be forced into court.

3)  Estate battles can go on forever. Don’t let them. Remember, Marshall died in 1994, followed by his son Pierce in 2006 and Anna Nicole in 2007–Judge Carter described the situation very aptly when he said, “Time spent litigating the relationship between Vickie Lynn and J. Howard has extended for nearly five times the length of their relationship and nearly twenty times the length of their marriage.”Yet the court battle rages on as the estates continue to jockey over what remains of the money! Unthinkable time and money have gone into the keeping the fight alive—why risk your loved ones living through something similar?  Again, a solidly-constructed estate plan is key to your wishes being carried out with minimal fuss.

Call our office today at (612) 206-3701 or fill out our contact form to schedule a time for us to sit down and have a family estate planning consultation, where we can help you look at what would happen now if something were to happen to you and ensure everything passes to your loved ones in the way you want.

Image by Toby Forage (Flickr) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Contact us to see how we can help you with Estate Planning

You may also like . . .

The Risks of Poor Man’s Estate Planning: 10 Common Mistakes

With my years of experience as an attorney, I have seen plenty of families left to sort things out for themselves because their parents either failed to plan their estate or turned to the siren song of the new, “do-it-yourself” estate planning websites in a misguided...

It’s Time You Got an Agent

You need an agent. No matter the nature of your unique talent and whether or not you have a particularly telegenic personality, your agent will be there to protect your interests and desires even after you’ve passed. What, did you think I meant the Hollywood type?...

The Tragic Family Fight Over the Property of Funnyman Robin Williams

The passing of beloved comedian Robin Williams shocked the world, but the latest tragedy that has followed in its wake was all too predictable. Mr. Williams left behind three children from two different marriages, Zak, Zelda, and Cody, from his first two marriages and...

The plain-English guide for Minnesota small business owners

When it comes to business, ignorance isn't bliss; ignorance is risk.

There's a handful of legal topics that business owners should be familiar with, at least on a rudimentary level, to reduce the risk of having something horrible come out of left field.

This book is a legal guide to help you put the most common business legal issues on your radar, with enough information for you to be on the alert for when you may need to get some professional advice.

The intention in arming you with this information is so that you can proceed in business confidently and with fewer legal quagmires.

Do you have a cabin?

The first generation that buys a cabin enjoys it to the fullest and it’s a magical place where happy memories are made and families go for some much needed respite. Unfortunately, without thoughtful planning, the chances of the cabin staying a place of happiness and tranquility into successive generations is very, very slim.

If you haven’t done the planning in advance and made it legally binding, the family members (and their ex-spouses and new spouses) will have to work every detail out for themselves. If they can’t, what is likely to happen is a lawsuit called an action for partition that forces everyone to sell their interest. This lawsuit is expensive, and the costs of litigation will come out of the proceeds of the sale of the cabin, so to add insult to injury to those who wanted to keep the cabin but couldn’t afford to buy the others out, they are footing part of the legal bills in the lawsuit against them. Ouch!

It’s no wonder that family members stop speaking for years after the cabin conflict is “resolved.” You can’t make family relationships perfect, but you can take away much of the fuel for the family conflict fire. That’s what cabin planning does, and it has the nice side effect of giving you peace of mind now.

That’s why Kimberly wrote The Minnesota Cabin Planning Guide and Workbook, and you can get a free electronic copy of her book on our cabin planning website, or you can find it in many county libraries in Minnesota, or you can get it on amazon.com.

Make An Appointment>

Join Our Mailing List

Subscribe to our newsletter list to get information and resources helpful to running your business and planning and managing your personal financial affairs delivered right to your inbox.

We don’t spam and won’t share your information with anyone, at anytime, ever.

Check out our podcast

The Small Business Buzz Podcast