Montgomery County Verdict of $1 Million Plus Attorneys Fees and Interest in Trustee Misconduct

Attorneys Mark W. Tanner and Thomas Martin recently received a verdict in an unusual case involving a Trustee who was withdrawing funds from her daughter’s Trust, and using them for her own benefit. Tanner and Martin, representing the beneficiary of the Trust, filed a civil action in the Court of Common Pleas against the Trustee and her husband, and also a Petition for an Accounting in Orphan’s Court. The two actions were tried together to verdict, and the judge recently issued a ruling, awarding the firm’s clients compensatory damages, punitive damages, interest, and attorney’s fees in an opinion in which he found it was proven at trial that the Trustee “…violated her fiduciary duty [to the beneficiary] in almost every way imaginable in the administration of the trust.” There had been no settlement offer prior to trial.