Beneficiaries Lose Millions as Executor Battles On
An important part of bequest management is keeping an eye on the executor and making sure they are doing their job. For example, executors handle financial claims made against the estate. Typically, these are routine debts for which the decedent was responsible, such as utility charges, loan payoffs, and medical bills. Fiduciaries pay these obligations in the normal course of estate administration.
Executors also oversee any “contested claims.” These are non-routine demands for payment, usually based upon some promise made, or allegedly made, by the decedent. The resolution of these matters requires skill, and the ability to strike a balance between the legitimacy of the claim and the beneficiaries’ interest in preserving the estate. Contested claims can and do go off the rails, sometimes horribly so. The protracted, or mismanaged, litigation of these matters can drain the assets of an estate. Beneficiaries can sometimes intervene to stem the outflow of money, but only if they are actively monitoring the administration.
A very recent example of how a contested claim can go south comes from a decision issued by the Rhode Island Supreme Court. In this newsletter, we present a streamlined version of this dispute. The litigation lasted more than a decade and wound up costing the estate many times the amount of the original claim. Interspersed throughout the narrative are reflections on what a focused bequest manager for a beneficiary might have done to mitigate the losses to this estate. [1]
[1] Neither CCK nor any of its clients were involved in this case. The newsletter is based solely on materials available to the public, including court decisions and media coverage. There may have been factors of which we are unaware governing the executor’s actions and no statement in this newsletter should be interpreted as an allegation that the executor or his attorneys breached any legal duty. We present the case solely as an opportunity to illustrate the intervention that a beneficiary’s bequest manager might consider in similar circumstances.
In this newsletter, we present a streamlined version of this dispute. It lasted more than a decade and wound up costing the estate many times the amount of the original claim.
The Decedent’s Broken Promise and a Daughter’s Claim
The case, Glassie v. Doucette, 330 A.3d 1300 (R.I. 2025), arose from a claim against the estate of Donelson (“Don”) Glassie, a well-known Newport entrepreneur. He died in 2011, leaving an estate valued at more than $80 million.
Independent of the will, Don established a trust for each of the three daughters from his second marriage. Jacquelin, also known as “Jacqui,” was the youngest. In a marital property settlement, Don promised that Jacqui’s trust would equal those of her two older sisters. When Don died, Jacqui’s trust was smaller than the other two by about $1 million.
Jacqui filed a claim against her father’s estate for the shortfall. Paul Doucette – Don’s executor — rejected the demand, stating that Jacqui had forfeited any right to the assets of her father’s estate because her suit violated a “no contest” clause in the will.
CCK COMMENT FOR NONPROFITS
The executor’s invocation of the no-contest defense seemed a bit desperate. Jacqui was not challenging the will or even acting in the status of a probate beneficiary. She was a creditor seeking to enforce the terms of a property settlement between the decedent and his second wife (her mother). Her claim was not bogus. A lawyer who was later involved in the case commented that the matter could have been settled at that point for $1 million, about 1.25% of the total estate. It wound up costing a lot more than that.
In a marital property settlement, Don promised that Jacqui’s trust would equal those of her two older sisters. When Don died, Jacqui’s trust was smaller than the other two by about $1 million.
The Daughter Dies and Her Sister Continues the Battle
Jacqui died in 2012. Her sister Alison (who got one of the larger trusts) assumed the role of executor of Jacqui’s estate and continued to seek full funding for the trust. She hit an immediate roadblock: only the trustee of Jacqui’s underfunded trust (in this case Wells Fargo) had the legal right to pursue that money. It had not done so. Alison was able to acquire that right, but it took a separate lawsuit in Utah for her to do so.
Back in Rhode Island, Alison was at last able to refile Jacqui’s claim for trust funding. Doucette fought back hard, reasserting the dubious “no contest” argument, and adding another galling defense: that Alison’s filing was late and should be dismissed. Of course, Alison was late, but because of the necessary detour to Utah! Her lawyer argued that Doucette’s position was disingenuous and unfair. The court sided with Alison and the case of The Jacquelin Glassie Trust versus The Estate of Donelson Glassie was finally scheduled for trial the following March (2023), twelve years after Don’s death and eleven years after Jacqui’s passing.
CCK COMMENT FOR NONPROFITS
There is no way to know whether or to what extent Doucette’s “scorched earth” approach to the case impeded any settlement talks. When the trial was scheduled, a bequest manager for a beneficiary might have intervened. The momentum of the case had clearly swung in Alison’s direction. The estate was hemorrhaging money for legal fees. At the very least, the beneficiaries could have – and should have – pressed the executor to settle or to explain his overall litigation strategy against an increasingly sympathetic plaintiff.
The Trial
The trial lasted two weeks. The jurors deliberated for only four hours and delivered a decisive verdict for Jacqui’s trust. Don’s estate was ordered to pay $1,164,138.43 (the shortfall in the trust) and an additional $1,692,434.02 in prejudgment interest (a staggering sum, but due entirely to the length of the litigation). The total bill: $2,856,572.45. This money would come from the corpus of Don’s estate and reduce the amount available for distribution to beneficiaries.
The Payment
At this point, Don’s estate had three options: (1) pay the judgment and end the case; (2) post security of roughly $3 million (to guarantee payment of the judgment) and continue litigating; or (3) negotiate with Alison to reduce the judgment amount to avoid an appeal. Given the aggressive approach that Don’s estate had taken to date, it must have come as a shock to Alison (and everyone else) when Doucette forwarded a check for the full amount of the judgment. The case was over. Or so it seemed.
Not Giving Up
Despite his unconditional payment of the full amount of the judgment, Doucette had no intention of letting the matter drop. He appealed the jury’s verdict, an action that was unusual since he had satisfied the judgment. Justice Goldberg of the Rhode Island Supreme Court would later call the satisfy-and-appeal strategy “bizarre and troubling.”
Justice Goldberg of the Rhode Island Supreme Court would later call the satisfy-and-appeal strategy “bizarre and troubling.”
A Small But Fatal Mistake Provokes a Final Decision
After a lower court declined to consider his appeal, Doucette sought relief from the Rhode Island Supreme Court. The high court also dismissed the case, not on grounds of “mootness” (payment of the judgment ended the case) but because of Doucette’s own unforced error.
The executor had intentionally delayed (allegedly to save the small cost involved) ordering essential transcripts of the lower court proceedings in the hope that the case would settle. In so doing, he missed a deadline established by court rules. Noting the irony of the executor posing as a pinchpenny after pouring millions into the case, the court found that Doucette’s conscious and voluntary disregard of the rules was sufficient ground for dismissal of his appeal.[2]
[2] Three Justices joined in the opinion. Two dissented, agreeing with the outcome but stating that the Court should not have entertained the case because it had become moot when Don’s estate paid the judgment.
Early Settlement
It is difficult to imagine that Jacqui would not have settled for a payment of $1 million, even less, at the outset. While there was an issue of standing once Jacqui died, an executor of the estate for a prematurely deceased child’s estate seeking equal treatment from her wealthy father’s estate seems like a case that should win out in the end. Given the optics and equities of Alison’s case, Doucette’s decade of take-no-prisoners litigation seemed and still seems ill-advised.
Granted, litigants sometimes stand on principle. This happens, for example, in the context of employment litigation where management will sometimes “hang tough” on a marginal case to prevent a slew of copycat cases. These incentives rarely exist in probate cases and were not present in the Donelson matter. Once Alison started racking up victories on behalf of her deceased sister (who died tragically at the age of 22), it would have been to everyone’s benefit, and good for the estate, to resolve the dispute.
Given the optics and equities of Alison’s case, Doucette’s decade of take-no-prisoners litigation seemed and still seems ill-advised.
Etiquette and Equity
Probate cases used to be handled in the “courts of equity,” tribunals in which considerations of justice and fairness in resolving disputes were as important, and sometimes more important, than rigid application of legal rules. This differs from the “courts of law” which, as the name implies, were governed by statutes and established precedents.
Although the courts of equity and law have merged in many states, probate matters have retained some of the equitable “flavor” of a bygone era. This is not surprising. These cases deal with the serious matter of someone’s final wishes. Judges in probate cases usually have a sincere desire to “do what the decedent would have wanted” and they take note when a litigant disregards that goal to pursue personal triumph in the courtroom.
Can a judge’s negative perception of a party or counsel affect the outcome in a case? There is no way to know. Doucette’s lawyer argued that the strict enforcement of the deadline was unprecedented. Did the unforgiving nature of the decision reflect judicial exasperation with Doucette? For sure, the jurists were remarkably vocal in characterizing the litigation strategy of Don’s estate as “procedural gamesmanship” that was “bizarre,” “diabolical,” and “shameful.” It is not a stretch to speculate that the ruling – certainly “legal” and well within the court’s discretion – was in part an “unofficial” sanction for the executor’s role in turning a simple claim into an onerous odyssey.
Charitable beneficiaries involved in bequest litigation should pursue rightful entitlements vigorously. Over the years, unflattering industry chatter, and even the occasional media story, have lamented instances of respected organizations crossing the line from aggressive to abusive probate litigation practices. True or not, these reports suggest that the donating public may have expectations about how charities should pursue dispute resolution. For that and many other reasons, CCK endeavors to avoid acrimonious litigation between a charity and other beneficiaries (especially a decedent’s family). We manage to achieve that goal in over 99% of the thousands of cases under our management.
Over the years, unflattering industry chatter, and even the occasional media story, have lamented instances of respected organizations crossing the line from aggressive to abusive probate litigation practices. True or not, these reports suggest that the donating public may have expectations about how charities should pursue dispute resolution.
Intervention
If a charitable beneficiary approaches an executor with a complaint about the handling of an estate, the expression of concern will frequently lead to the resolution of the problem. In serious cases, a beneficiary can take the extraordinary step of seeking assistance from the probate court if the executor’s conduct is unduly delaying the process or, even worse, threatening the assets of the estate.
In most states, beneficiaries will have “standing” to make such a complaint. The Uniform Probate Code, which reflects probate practices in an ever-increasing number of jurisdictions, provides that a beneficiary can seek removal of an executor if that would be “in the best interests of the estate” or if the fiduciary “has mismanaged the estate.” UPC § 3-611.
