Boston Safe Deposit & Trust Co. v. Seifert

6 Mass. L. Rptr. 410
CourtMassachusetts Superior Court
DecidedJanuary 15, 1997
DocketNo. 927312
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 6 Mass. L. Rptr. 410 (Boston Safe Deposit & Trust Co. v. Seifert) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Massachusetts Superior Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Boston Safe Deposit & Trust Co. v. Seifert, 6 Mass. L. Rptr. 410 (Mass. Ct. App. 1997).

Opinion

Garsh, J.

Summary judgment was granted in favor of the plaintiff, Boston Safe Deposit and Trust Company (“Boston Safe”), with respect to liability only on its claims against the defendant Ralph H. Seifert (“Seifert”) for breach of fiduciaiy duly and tortious non-disclosure. [5 Mass. L. Rptr. No. 1, 6 (April 8, 1996).] This court held that the undisputed facts demonstrated that Seifert had breached his fiduciary duty as trustee of the Bristol-Norfolk Development Trust (“BND Trust”), of which the Charles A. Wheeler Trust (“Wheeler Family Trust") was a beneficiary, and had engaged in tortious non-disclosure by negotiating and entering into an agreement to sell BND Trust properly solely for his own benefit without disclosing material facts to the Wheeler Family Trust. Boston Safe now petitions for assessment of damages. Seifert and Boston Safe disagree on the amount of damages to which Boston Safe is entitled, but they agree that there are no material disputed facts bearing upon the assessment of damages.

BACKGROUND

The following material facts are not disputed:3

In 1963 Seifert and Charles A. Wheeler (“Wheeler”) placed approximately eighty-five acres of undeveloped real estate in Foxboro and Mansfield into the BND Trust. By the terms of the trust instrument, Seifert and Wheeler served as co-trustees, and the net income of the trust was to be divided into two equal parts. Each trustee was to receive one-half of the trust’s net income during his lifetime. Upon Seifert’s death, one-half of the BND Trust net income was to be paid to a trust in favor of his family (“Seifert Family Trust”). Upon Wheeler’s death, one half of the BND Trust net income was to be paid to the Wheeler Family Trust. The BND Trust was to terminate on the death of both trustees, whereupon each of the Seifert and Wheeler Family Trusts would receive an undivided one-half interest in the trust corpus.

At or about the time of Wheeler’s death in June, 1977, there remained approximately seventy-eight acres of land in the trust corpus. Boston Safe succeeded Wheeler as co-trustee of the BND Trust, and, in 1986, it negotiated with Seifert to sell to him the Wheeler Family Trust’s one-half interest in the BND Trust property. Seifert simultaneously negotiated a purchase and sale agreement with real estate developer Paul J. Folkman (“Folkman”) to sell to Folkman substantially all of the BND Trust property. On November 20, 1986, the BND Trust was dissolved. On December 30, 1986, the Wheeler Family Trust conveyed its one-half interest (approximately thirty-nine acres) in the BND Trust to Seifert for $283,333.20. On the same day, and without Boston Safe’s knowledge, Seifert conveyed approximately 74.8 acres of the BND Trust property to Folkman for $1.2 million. Seifert retained 3.2 acres of the BND Trust property surrounding his Mansfield home. These acres were not conveyed to Folkman.

Seifert received $450,000 from Folkman at the time of the closing: the remainder was to be paid in four yearly installments with interest at the prime rate of the Bank of Boston plus one per cent per annum (the “Folkman Note”). Pursuant to the Folkman Note, Seifert received the following payments: December 30, 1987 — $249,500: December 30, 1988 — $245,436.73; January 4,1990 — $232,510.28. Seifertpaid$314,182 in federal and state capital gains taxes on the payments he received under the Folkman Note.

Under the terms of the Folkman Note, Folkman owed Seifert a final installment of $210,000 on December 30, 1990. Seifert did not receive this payment. Seifert entered, instead, in May of 1992, into a settlement agreement with Folkman and the Attleboro Pawtucket Savings Bank (“APS Bank”), with whom Folkman had entered into a joint venture to develop the former BND Trust property. The compromise called for Seifert to discharge the balance due on the Folkman Note; APS Bank, in turn, promised to pay Seifert $10,000 and to discharge a $100,000 personal loan Seifert had obtained from the bank in April of 1990. In addition, the Folkman joint venture agreed to release Seifert from a $35,000 obligation which it claimed Seifert personally owed to the joint venture and which Seifert disputed.

A portion of the proceeds of the Folkman Note is traceable to assets now held by Seifert. On April 11, 1988, Seifert applied to APS Bank for a loan in the amount of $135,000 to purchase real estate. Seifert used the Folkman Note as security for the loan. On May 25, 1988, Seifert executed a promissory note in the amount of $135,000. On May 27,1988, a warranty deed evidencing Seifert’s purchase of property in Birch Hill, North Conway, New Hampshire was recorded at [412]*412the Registry of Deeds. The deed was executed on May 24, 1988, and it shows a purchase price of $159,000. At the time of the purchase, Seifert had no outstanding mortgages on the property. On December 30, 1988, Seifert received $245,436.73 from Folkman. He paid the $135,000 he owed to APS Bank on the same day. The funds obtained by the loan secured by, and discharged with the proceeds of, the Folkman Note constituted eighty-four per cent of the purchase price of the New Hampshire property.

On April 26, 1990, Seifert obtained a loan from APS Bank in the amount of $100,000 for the stated purpose of “[i]nvest[ing] in New Hampshire real estate.” This loan was also secured by the Folkman Note. The loan proceeds were used to make improvements on the New Hampshire property.

On March 27, 1987, Seifert refinanced his Mansfield home with APS Bank. At that time, the three acres Seifert had retained were given to the bank as additional collateral for a $300,000 loan. Seifert instructed the bank to use $103,821.44 to pay off an outstanding mortgage on property located in Maine. The Mansfield mortgage was discharged on May 4, 1990.

This action was commenced on December 8, 1992. On December 6, 1993, Seifert transferred the retained three acres to the Ralph H. Seifert and Sandra C. Seifert Charitable Unitrust (“Charitable Unitrust”). At or about that time, the three acres were appraised for tax purposes as having a 1993 value of $100,000.4

DISCUSSION

The Wheeler Family Trust is entitled to be compensated fully for the consequences of Seifert’s tortious actions. This court has already found that Seifert did not make full disclosure of numerous material facts when he had duly to do so, that Boston Safe relied, to its detriment, on these non-disclosures, and, further, that Seifert acted for his personal benefit in violation of his fiduciary duties in negotiating and entering into an agreement with Folkman solely for his own benefit. Had the land been sold by the BND Trust to Folkman directly, the BND Trust would have received the funds from Folkman, and the beneficiaries of the BND Trust would have benefitted equally.

When a trustee commits a breach of trust, he is “accountable for any profit accruing to the trust through the breach of trust; or chargeable with the amount required to restore the values of the trust estate and trust distributions to what they would have been if the trust had been properly administered.” Restatement (Third) of Trusts §205 (1992) (emphasis added). In other words, a beneficiary can choose to seek as damages either what was wrongfully taken or may seek the profit, if any, made by the wrongdoer with the improperly acquired trust property. A “trustee is subject to such liability as necessary to prevent the trustee from benefiting personally from the breach of trust.” Id. See also Restatement (Second) of Trusts §206 (1959).5

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Bluebook (online)
6 Mass. L. Rptr. 410, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/boston-safe-deposit-trust-co-v-seifert-masssuperct-1997.