Stealing an Inheritance

By Simon Sayles

Roberta Ranger had a long standing estate plan naming her nephew as the executor and leaving 40% of a $20 Million Estate to family and 60% to Charities. However at 89 years of age and suffering from Alzheimer's Disease, Roberta changed her estate plan to leave everything to a neighbor who had arranged for her own attorney to draft the new Will for Roberta. That attorney had a neuropsychologist exam Robert immediately after signing the Will and it was the expert's opinion that Roberta, though having declining mental capacity, still was competent to sign the Will. Arthur Hadley was hired by the nephew, and by implication the other former beneficiaries, to contest the Will. Hadley discovered that Roberta's middle name was spelled wrong in the Will and that the neuropsychologist himself was suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Arthur Hadley's representation of his client was complicated by (1) another case where he had to argue the exact opposite point of view from this case, and (2) his license to practice law could be suspended or revoked by the State Bar during this work after he got arrested during a Black Lives Matter rally. The case went to trial and surprising evidence lead to a compromise that resulted in at least partial justice.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jun 4, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098345006

Book preview

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STEALING AN INHERITANCE

By SIMON SAYLES

Note to the Readers: This story is fiction although it may have many similarities to actual cases.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

ISBN: 9781098345006

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 1

I was sitting in my office feeling that life had treated me pretty well. At 62 years of age, my health was good and my financial well-being seemed assured. I had made a lot of money over the years but had spent or lost it all. However, just a week ago, I had been in trial on a wrongful death case and the jury awarded my client, whose husband had died in jail, $1,331,000. That was almost $1 Million more than we had requested from the jury. I was on a contingency, meaning my share was 40% of whatever was collected. I was really looking forward to the pay-off. However, the defendants in that case, the City and County, had filed an appeal, one that I felt confident they would lose. But it meant that the defendants would not pay the judgement until after the appeal was over, which would most likely take two years. I had invested more than $30,000 of my own money in that case for things like court costs, jury fees, expert witness fees, depositions and helping make a witness who would testify against my client disappear. It was money well spent, but it meant that I needed to find a way to pay my bills for the next two years.

At my age, unless I was in trial, I did not work a full day. I usually got into the office about 8:30 AM, worked until 11:30 and then headed over to the local bridge club where I play bridge (usually with a good-looking partner) for the next four hours. Then I go back to my office for an hour or so, answering telephone calls and doing anything else I needed to do before the end of the day. That was my plan for today. It was 9:30 AM when I got my first phone call. I have no secretary and people are often surprised when I pick up the telephone myself. This call was from an attorney I know, one who also plays bridge occasionally at my bridge club, and who wanted to refer a case to me.

My friend, Bill Ward, said he had a client who was the nephew of a single lady who had died a couple weeks ago. She had family wealth and had always named her nephew to be the executor of her Will. However, only a month or two before her death, she had created a Living Trust naming a neighbor as her Successor Trustee and sole beneficiary of her Estate. Before she died, this lady had become increasingly senile and the nephew believed she did not know what she was doing when she signed the trust documents. Bill went on to say that the nephew had just received a notice in the mail from an attorney that claimed the nephew, or any other beneficiaries for that matter, had only 120 days to contest the trust. I knew that was standard practice with trusts when the person creating the trust died.

I asked Bill when I could get together with the nephew. He said the nephew was coming to his law office at 11:00 AM this morning. He wanted to know if I could be there and I said I would. I had to call my bridge partner Sonja, who was already mad at me for not playing as her partner for the three weeks I was in the jury trial. When I called her to cancel our bridge date today, she told me she was canceling all our future dates and not to call her again.

Chapter 2

I got to Bill’s law office a few minutes early. His secretary, a gray haired middle-aged woman with wire rim glasses, had me wait in the lobby until my friend got off the phone. Before the nephew arrived, I wanted to nail down any arrangement I would make with Bill as the referring attorney. Did he want his name on the pleadings and share in work and fees or did he just want a finder’s fee for the referral? As it turned out, Bill didn’t want to be named on the pleadings, afraid his malpractice insurance might be affected, but he expected to receive 10% of whatever I earned. If the case was as good as it sounded, a 10% finder’s fee sounded reasonable to me.

When the nephew arrived, he introduced himself as Bart Sawyer. He was in his mid-30s, short well-groomed hair and an athletic build. Bart brought some documents with him. He had a copy of the notice from the attorney named George Jennings, an attorney I did not know well but who was someone I had seen around, and he was at least as old as me. I knew he primarily did probate and estate planning so the notice from him was no surprise. The notice said that Beverly Spann was the trustee because of the death of Roberta Ranger, Bart’s aunt, and the one who created the trust so late in her life. Bart also had a copy of the Trust Instrument which was very simple, naming Beverly Spann as Successor Trustee and sole beneficiary. 

Bart told us his aunt was 89 years old when she died. He had done the best he could to see she was being taken care of in these later years. Aunt Roberta wanted to stay in her own home and had enough money to make that happen. Bart had hired caregivers for Aunt Roberta, but she was not the easiest person to get along with. Bart had hired a number of caregivers that came in part time to make sure Aunt Roberta was doing alright, eating a full meal and taking her medication. Aunt Roberta had fired several of these caregivers herself over time for no apparent reason and Bart was always looking for someone new. The last one employed before Aunt Roberta died, had been with Aunt Roberta almost six months, a record. The caregiver came to Aunt Roberta’s house about 9:00 AM every morning, helped Aunt Roberta out of bed and into her clothing for the day and prepared breakfast. After Aunt Roberta had eaten and taken her pills, the caregiver would do the laundry and anything else needing to be done, but then leave Aunt Roberta alone, usually watching television, until the caregiver would return about 3:30 in the afternoon. The caregiver would stay with Aunt Roberta until about 7:30 P.M., put Aunt Roberta to bed and then leave for the night. A different caregiver would come in on weekends.

I asked Bart about his Aunt’s mental condition during the last year of her life. He said he would visit her at least once a week, pay her bills and sit and talk with her for at least half an hour each time. Aunt Roberta always recognized him and was happy to see him. Aunt Roberta would ask about Bart’s wife, two children and his two sisters that did not visit Aunt Roberta very often. Aunt Roberta liked to talk about things that happened when she was young, the long marriage to her husband, a successful real estate agent, but who had died ten years before Aunt Roberta. They were never able to have children. Aunt Roberta didn’t like to go to the doctor and was healthy physically, anyway. A nurse would come in once a month to take Aunt Roberta’s vitals and make sure she had the necessary medication. Bart would play 1950s music on the phonograph that Aunt Roberta loved to hear. Aunt Roberta used to talk about politics with Bart but had stopped doing that for the last couple years. He had arranged for caregivers to come in and help Aunt Roberta when she started leaving the gas burner on the stove going and forgetting to pay bills. Bart had been paying the bills for nearly three years now. Bart knew his Aunt was worth almost $20 million Dollars. The house was worth several million dollars, she had over $10 million in stocks and bonds with a stockbroker, and had multiple CDs at three different banks. I asked if Aunt Roberta knew what her assets were and Bart said generally, she knew she was well off, but did not seem interested any more in what stocks and bonds she owned. She didn’t look at the monthly reports from her stockbroker.

I asked Bart about this Beverly Spann and  Bart said he knew she was a neighbor down the street a few doors down and that she occasionally visited Aunt Roberta. They had been neighbors for more than 30 years. Beverly was perhaps