Surrogate: Dog Groups Barking Up The Wrong Tree

May 09, 2011

This is my third “dog pun” post in as many years. 

If you’ve read this blog since its inception, or have merely been sniffing through the archives, then know that real estate heiress Leona Helmsley left $12 million in her will in trust for her four-legged friend, Trouble. She also created a charitable trust valued at between $5-8 billion. In a two-page mission statement, she expressed her desire that the trust funds be used for the care and welfare of dogs. 

In my post dated December 31, 2008 — titled “Leona’s Wishes May Be Thrown To The Dogs” — I opined that a court might construe the mission statement as constituting merely a precatory request, not a mandatory directive. On February 26, 2009, in my post titled “A Sop For Cerberus”, I reported that in an “advice and direction” proceeding, New York County Surrogate Troy Webber had indeed decided that Ms. Helmsley’s trustees had the discretion to distribute the funds to charities as they saw fit, not just to canine causes.

Not content to let sleeping dogs lie, however, four animal welfare charities sought to intervene in the proceeding after the fact and vacate the court’s decision. They argued to the court that their causes were insufficiently protected by the New York State Attorney General and that they should have an opportunity to be heard in the matter. However, in a Decision and Order dated April 15, 2011, Surrogate Nora Anderson denied their application.

Essentially, the court found no reason to depart from the general rule that possible trust beneficiaries or members of a class of possible beneficiaries do not have standing to participate in court proceedings to enforce the provisions of the trust. The court also rejected the proposed intervenors’ argument that they fell within a narrow exception to that general principle, affording standing to a particular group with a special interest in funds held for a charitable purpose. Instead, as the court explained, by statute the Attorney General is conferred with the authority to represent all possible unnamed charitable beneficiaries. Further, the court rejected the charities’ argument that the Attorney General failed to doggedly protect their interests.

 This decision will no doubt leave the proposed charitable intervenors a bit dog-eared. But it appropriately — and thankfully (I’m all out of dog puns) — brings closure to a nearly 25-year-old saga (in dog years, of course: http://www.onlineconversion.com/dogyears.htm).