Oh, OK, I’ll play devil’s advocate, since no one else is stepping up to the plate.
This money was not given to her by her father. It was left to her by her grandfather, in a trust (since she was only six at the time he died). Her father, as trustee, was a fiduciary who had a responsibility to manage that trust property for her benefit. There were other trusts for other grandchildren (which he may well have also managed), but that one was hers. She is alleging that her father effectively stole money out of the trust by selling assets at ridiculously low prices, thereby frustrating her grandfather’s plan to give her the money. I don’t see why it’s so unreasonable to sue over this.
Let me give a “hypothetical” example (it happened to a family I know, but certain identifying information has been changed), and see if it feels any more fair. The patriarch of the family died, and left his money equally to his three grandchildren. His son was executor of the will. No money was left to the son, because he had been “provided for during his lifetime”; everything went to the grandchildren. The son concealed the language of the will from the grandchildren, and instead distributed the money equally among the five great-grandchildren. Among other problems, this meant that the money was distributed unequally among the three branches of the family - the one with only one great-grandchild got stiffed. Should either the grandchildren or the great-grandchildren be able to sue the son? He unilaterally decided that he didn’t like his father’s will, and took it upon himself to redistribute the money differently. The fact that he didn’t profit himself doesn’t change the fact that he stiffed one branch of the family in favor of the others. But everyone got money, right? They should all be happy to have received anything, right? That seems to be the logic some of you are using in this thread.
If the money was given to her, it was hers, it didn’t belong to the trustee to use as he pleased. When someone gives you a gift, he no longer has the right to take it back and use it for his own or someone else’s benefit. Even more so if the money was bequeathed to her. It never belonged to her father. His responsibility was to take care of the trust for her. He essentially took money from her without her permission and gave it to other family members. I doubt that many of you would be willing to tolerate that kind of action, if it were your bank account in question.
No, but in the Pit I can also say that your wish of death upon her is unnecessary. Like ENugent pointed out, the family may very well have violated the express terms of an irrevocable trust.
So yes, I’d agree that the girl is being greedy, and the whole thing is absurd. But that doesn’t affect her legal rights, should the law in fact be on her side.
ENugent, that explanation makes a lot more sense and yes, it is something worth taking legal action if no other remedy is available. Is this what actually happened or were you playing Devil’s Advocate as you claimed?
If, OTOH, this was the father’s money it is still the father’s money until he dies. Up to that point, he can do whatever he feels like with it including spending all $10 billion on strippers and Old Milwaukee.
If a trust is set up so poorly that it need an family member to administer it, there will always be problems. The ability to actually frustrate the original intent without an outside body having the say so to go "Whoa there " like a bank official, or some such, well, was not set up very well IMO.
These loop holes get left in because folks want MAXIUM profits in the interim and not safety for their intents to the beneficiaries.
If they would be willing to reduce the volatility of the investments much less turn it into solids, bullion, land, gems, municipal bonds, etc., then the need for executors is removed for the most part.
Sounds like the trust was not set up well to me. In the above example and the one in the OP.
YMMV
K.I.S.S.
The wealthy can’t seem to stand to not be always at the maximum gain line. This sometimes bites them in the butt.
There are two issues here - the request for recompense, and the $5 billion punitive damages claim.
I agree that if her father, the trustee, violated his fiduciary duty towards her, and is unwilling to fix the problem, she has every right to sue. Just because they are related does not forclose the court system to them as society’s sanctioned method of neutral dispute resolution.
By that same token, she’s entitled to ask for whatever punitive’s she feels she’s entitled to… but it doesn’t cast her in a particularly noble light to do so.
The Pritzker family empire currently has many financial woes. The little one here may be seeing it all slip away and is trying to get some of that pie before it’s all gone.
I’m not going to participate in a debate in which the merits of the suit are unknown. It appeared to me that she is a greedy bitch who ought to have a horrific demise befall on her. YMMV, but that 5 billion for punitive damages isn’t helping sway my opinion.
I dunno World Eater, the claim is that the father stole $1B from the fund, I think that $5B of punitive damages is fairly reasonable in that case, it’s 5x the actual damages. At least, asking for it is reasonable, I don’t know what she would actually get given the circumstances.
In her defense, if that money was actually hers, nobody in the world has the right to take it, no matter how much she has, no matter how much someone else wants it, no matter how much or little they took, no matter how little she deserves it. It is her money, and taking it is wrong, period.
Valid points Cheese, however I’m looking at it from the POV that she’s a greedy bitch that can do no good.
Somehow I doubt she was trusted with that type of dough at such a young age. Perhaps her father made some bone-headed business moves and plundered part of it, however punitive damages implies malicious intent does it not?
I find it easier to believe that she is a spoiled brat with a sense of entitlement, then I can imagine her completely filthy rich family pilfering her coiffeurs for a cool billion.
Her father’s mismanagement may have been completely innocent, but if that money found its way into the hands of her relatives, I don’t see how that could be. “Whoops, I just lost $100mil out of your trust. Luckily it found its way into your aunt’s bank account!”
Either way, she’ll have to PROVE his guilt in court, at least we have that going for us.
The paragraph about the son who took it upon himself to rewrite his father’s will is something that really happened to a family of my acquaintance. It was not discovered for twenty years, and they are inclined to let it go at this point, especially since the perpetrator is now senile anyway.
The part about how this woman inherited the money from her grandfather, in a trust overseen by her father, is inferred from the information in the link kindly provided by beagledave, although it doesn’t quite say that this particular trust was established specifically for her by her grandfather, now that I reread it.
I was beginning to rethink my initial thoughts but ENugent brought me back. I think the ‘little princess’ is entirely in the right here including the punitive damages in that it is only 5x.
Now, should someone inherit billions of dollars is another story…
I should also point out that a friend of mine was in the same situation, though with much less money involved.
She was a minor who inherited $$$ from an aunt or uncle. When she found out about it and assumed control of it she found out that her father and step mother had used about half the money for expenses and college education for her step-siblings.
This was clearly against the aunt/uncle’s wishes. Her parents thought is was ‘only fair’ since it was ‘unfair’ that she would get the money and her step-siblings woundn’t. The also critisized her for being selfish to object.
I encouraged her to sue but she didn’t. She was very upset abd felt bad about being upset since she felt ‘greedy’. I tried to make her understand that it was her money and they deprived her of this money without her consent. They could have taken student loans out and, when she reached age to control the trust, ask her if she would pay them off. They deprived her of this and she should have sued.
