Payback

An old, frail woman needs a temporary loan to pay a property-tax bill. She goes to her millionaire daughter. This daughter owns airplanes and vacation homes. The daughter manipulates her Mom into putting all of her money into an irrevocable trust, naming the daughter as the trustee. When Mom want to revoke the trust and get back control of her money, the daughter cuts off all payments to her.

Through family members, Mom scrapes together $10,000 to pay a lawyer to sue to get back her money. Millionaire daughter hires a big-time law firm to keep the money away from her. The law firm sues my client, Mom’s son, to get his rock-n-roll memorabilia collection added to Mom’s trust. Millionaire daughter has long hated my client, whom Mom favored. (But Mom did give the daughter the seed money that laid the foundation for her millions.)

The millionaire daughter’s legal bills are paid out of Mom’s trust. The litigation goes on until the legal bills exceed the amount in the trust. Then the daughter agrees to give back the money. But there’s nothing left.

The case is dragging on while a piece of real estate from the trust is on the market. When it’s sold, the money will pay the rest of the daughter’s legal bills.

After yesterday’s status conference, I talked to the millionaire daughter’s lawyer. I told him that his client had a moral duty to make sure that her mother isn’t buying her food in the supermarket pet-supplies aisle. It’s not my business. My client is keeping his rock ‘n roll collection, so my work is done. And I don’t represent Mom. But I can’t help myself.

The millionaire daughter’s attorney gets agitated. That pleases me. Because I think he’s a bum for eating up an old woman’s estate to keep it away from her. He should have told his client to take a hike. We keep talking. It's tense.  He demands to know if I get angry about all of my cases. I say no, but that this case makes me angry. 

For his sake, it’s good that my comments raised his hackles. A guilty conscience is better than no conscience.