Catherine Meyer, as Beneficiary of the 1999 Carlsen Family Living Trust

2014 WY 91, 330 P.3d 263, 2014 WL 3586503, 2014 Wyo. LEXIS 101
CourtWyoming Supreme Court
DecidedJuly 22, 2014
DocketS-13-0227
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 2014 WY 91 (Catherine Meyer, as Beneficiary of the 1999 Carlsen Family Living Trust) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Wyoming Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Catherine Meyer, as Beneficiary of the 1999 Carlsen Family Living Trust, 2014 WY 91, 330 P.3d 263, 2014 WL 3586503, 2014 Wyo. LEXIS 101 (Wyo. 2014).

Opinion

DAVIS, Justice.

[11] Appellant Catherine Meyer is a beneficiary of her parents' trust, and she brought an action against the trustee challenging the validity of certain amendments to it after her mother Evelyn Carlsen died. Mrs. Carlsen, who was a settlor and also served as trustee, amended the trust on two separate occasions before she passed away, as she was permitted to do by its terms. Appellant, who will receive less upon her mother's death because of these amendments, contends they are invalid for two reasons. First, the amendments were intended to collect a debt and therefore violate the Statute of Frauds. Second, Mrs. Carlsen was unduly influenced to amend the trust by her other daughters. The district court granted the Appellee successor trustee summary judgment. We find no disputed issues of material fact and that the trustee was entitled to judgment as a matter of law, and we therefore affirm.

ISSUES

[12] 1. Were the amendments to the trust invalid because they violated the Statute of Frauds?

2. Are there disputed issues of material fact as to whether Mrs. Carlsen's daughters procured the amendments through the exercise of undue influence?

FACTS

[13] In 1999, Mr. and Mrs. Carlsen established the 1999 Carlsen Family Living Trust, naming their five daughters, Appellant Catherine Meyer, Sara Miller, Carol Carlsen, Jean Cedarquist, and Roberta Nemeth, as beneficiaries. 1 However, the trust reserved extensive powers to Mr. and Mrs. Carlsen during their lives. They had the right to use the trust assets as they chose, and the power to amend or revoke the trust if they elected to do so. 2 The remaining trust assets were to be distributed to the five daughters in equal shares by Sara Miller, the successor trustee, when both of the Carlsens had died.

[T4] The trust was drafted by the Carl-sens' attorney Dick Kahl, who was also their friend and neighbor. The trust remained unchanged for ten years after the Carlsens executed it,. Mr. Carlsen passed away during this time frame, and Mrs. Carlsen became the sole trustee and surviving settlor.

[T5] At some point during the ten years after the trust was executed, Appellant con-vineed her mother to invest approximately $40,000.00 of its assets with a broker friend, and unfortunately, that investment shrank to approximately $20,000.00. As early as 2006, Mrs. Carlsen began telling others that she had expressed her frustration about the loss to Appellant, who would be responsible for it.

[16] In the summer of 2008, Mrs. Carl-sen visited three daughters who lived in IIli-nois. She visited Appellant for several days *266 first, and then she stayed with her other daughter, Jean. Mrs. Carlson told Jean and another daughter Roberta that Appellant had said that the loss could be dealt with through inheritance. Jean and Roberta told their mother that it was not an issue they could address, and that she would have to deal with it through her attorney. Mrs. Carlsen asked the two to help her prepare notes reflecting her thoughts to share with attorney Kahl. Roberta put the notes in a letter to Mr. Kahl, which Mrs. Carlsen signed. Jean and Roberta told Mrs. Carlsen that she did not have to make any changes to the trust and could just leave it as originally drafted as far as they were concerned. Whether their mother wanted to follow up with her attorney was entirely up to her, in their view.

[17] Mrs. Carlsen returned to her home in Powell, Wyoming after the Illinois visit. She did not discuss amending the trust with her daughters again before she met with Mr. Kahl and executed the first amendment half a year later. Before meeting with Mr. Kahl, Mrs. Carlsen was seen by her medical doctor Terry Reisner on January 26, 2009, for a checkup related to her diabetes. During this checkup, Mrs. Carlsen did not show any signs of mental confusion, and Dr. Reisner did not have any concerns about her mental faculties.

[18] In February 2009, Mrs. Carlsen met with Mr. Kahl to discuss changes to the trust, and that meeting resulted in the First Amendment to Declaration of Trust: 1999 Carlsen Fomily Living Trust dated February 27, 2009. This first amendment modified the trust's terms so that "[pJrior to any other distribution under the terms of the Trust, my daughter, Catherine Meyer, shall pay to the Trust, the sum of $20,000.00, an amount owed by her to my Trust." Mr. Kahl confirmed by a later affidavit that Mrs. Carlsen was alert and mentally sharp in the meetings concerning the first amendment to the trust.

[19] Shortly thereafter, Appellant came to see her mother in Wyoming. 3 On April 20, 2009, she accompanied her mother to a follow-up visit with Dr. Reisner. She expressed apprehension about Mrs. Carl-sen's ability to drive and alleged forgetfulness. Prompted by these concerns, Dr. Reisner first addressed the physical aspect of Mrs. Carlsen's driving abilities, which took the remainder of the time allotted for that appointment. He scheduled a mental evaluation two days later, at which time he performed a Folstein Mini Mental State Examination that consisted of several questions relating to orientation, registration, attention, calculation, recall, and language. Mrs. Carlsen obtained a perfect score of 81 out of 81. Based upon the test and his interactions with her, Dr. Reisner perceived Mrs. Carlsen to be a mentally sharp eighty-two year-old.

[110] A few months later, in July of 2009, Mrs. Carlsen fell and fractured her pelvis and was hospitalized. When she was released in August of 2009, three daughters from Illinois-Carol, Roberta and Jean-came to Wyoming to visit and help their sister Sara, who lived in Powell, care for their mother. Appellant did not come to Wyoming at that time. For a while after her injury, Mrs. Carlsen used a walker, needed oxygen at times, and was not medically cleared to drive until September of 2009.

[111] In August of 2009, Mrs. Carlsen and the four daughters who were in Powell met with Mr. Kahl to discuss how the amended terms of the trust would be carried out if Appellant did not pay the $20,000.00 that Mrs. Carlsen perceived Appellant was to blame for losing. Mr. Kahl advised Mrs. Carlsen and her daughters that she could amend the trust to include language authorizing the trustee to reduce the Appellant's trust distributions if she failed to reimburse it, which would effectively address her concerns. Mrs. Carlsen directed Mr. Kahl to draft a second amendment adding that provision. On August 17, 2009, Mrs. Carlsen returned to his office alone and executed the Second Amendment to Declaration of Trust: 1999 Carisen Fomily Living Trust. It provides as follows:

Prior to any other distribution under the terms of the Trust, my daughter, Catherine Meyer shall pay to the Trust, the sum *267 of Twenty thousand and no/100 Dollars ($20,000), an amount owed by her to my Trust. In the alternative, if my daughter, Catherine Meyer, refuses to repay the sum, the Successor Trustee [Sara Miller] shall reduce the share of the trust estate of Catherine Meyer by the sum of Sixteen thousand and no/100 Dollars ($16,000) 4

[T 12] In March of 2012, Mrs. Carlsen passed away without making any further changes to the trust.

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2014 WY 91, 330 P.3d 263, 2014 WL 3586503, 2014 Wyo. LEXIS 101, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/catherine-meyer-as-beneficiary-of-the-1999-carlsen-family-living-trust-wyo-2014.