Opinion ID: 2275208
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Pensiero Option

Text: In reviewing the Bank's handling of the children's objections to the honoring of Tessier's option agreement with Pensiero, we do not require that its conduct conform to what we know in hindsight might have been the best course to follow. Estate of Baldwin, 442 A.2d at 534. We look at what the Bank knew and at what a skilled professional should have known in evaluating its choices of action and the propriety of its determination therein. The children argue that the Bank should have renegotiated the option price with Pensiero. But, if the option was a legally valid part of the existing contract between the deceased and Pensiero, that left the Bank with no leverage with which to renegotiate, the position taken by Pensiero's attorney with the Bank. We believe that the Bank was justified in relying on the opinion of counsel that adequate consideration supported the purchase option and in favoring, as it did, a judicial determination of the question. We cannot say that the children's ability to buy the option for $8,000 and sell the house to one of them for $35,000 proves that the Bank did not prudently manage the estate. It would have been risky for the Bank to use the estate's funds to buy the option and then attempt to sell the house. This would have tied up even more of the estate's assets at a time when the children were demanding that those funds be invested or distributed. Although some persons, such as the children here, may have been willing to risk their own money to buy up the option, it was within the range of reasonableness and prudence for the Bank in its professional judgment to take a more cautious course.