Court Opinion

ID: 9689499
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 18:37:01.937841+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:49.407658
License: Public Domain

JOHN E. PARRISH, Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the result reached in the principal opinion. I do so, as did Rahmeyer, J., reluctantly. My reluctance results from the trust’s designation of a “trust protector” when that term has not been previously accepted or otherwise defined by statute or court opinions of this state. Trusts are, in my opinion, dangerous devices when they undertake to break new ground insofar as designating obligations or rights of a nature not theretofore established by statute or prior judicial determination. In my opinion, a valid criticism of trusts, in general, is that there is limited supervision for them administration. If no controversy arises, it is unlikely that this would be a problem. However, if a problem or dispute arises with respect to a trust’s administration, it is not unusual for lengthy, expensive litigation to follow or for an interested party to conclude that, because of time and expense constraints, it is impractical to pursue judicial determination of a controversy. For that reason I suggest that breaking new ground by using procedures other than those time-proven in the law is something that should not be encouraged.
The principal opinion sets forth the provisions of section 5.4 of the trust. That provision identifies the role of the “trust protector.” It states the trust protector’s authority (not duties, but authority) is “conferred in a fiduciary capacity.” It provides that “the Trust Protector shall not be liable for any action taken in good faith.”
Feinberg v. Adolph Feinberg Hotel Trust, 922 S.W.2d 21, 25 (Mo.App.1996), explains, when evaluating the reasonableness of a trustee’s actions, that “a court must apply any objective standards which *796were expressed in the trust instrument.” Or, stated differently, the applicable trust instrument defines the objective standards to be used in evaluating the reasonableness of a trustee’s actions. It appears to me that this same standard is apropos for evaluating any authority granted by the terms of a trust. On that basis, I contend that any actions taken (or in this case not taken) by the person denoted as the trust protector can only be judged on the basis of whether his actions, or inactions, occurred in a manner contrary to the precise language in the trust document in question. Here, the trust provides that “[t]he Trust Protector’s authority ... is conferred in a fiduciary capacity and shall be so exercised, but the Trust Protector shall not be liable for any action taken in good faith.” Thus, absent the trust protector doing something in bad faith, he is not liable for his conduct. Arguably, the petition’s allegation that the trust protector acted in bad faith creates a fact issue that could not be determined by what the trial court had before it in the motion for summary judgment. For that reason alone, I concur in the result reached.