Court Opinion

ID: 9927112
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-01-26 06:05:27.063458+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:23:48.983093
License: Public Domain

If this opinion indicates that it is “FOR PUBLICATION,” it is subject to
                  revision until final publication in the Michigan Appeals Reports.

                            STATE OF MICHIGAN

                            COURT OF APPEALS

In re THE BERNARD BOUTET REVOCABLE
LIVING TRUST.

LYNN MARINE-ADAMS, Trustee,                                            UNPUBLISHED
                                                                       January 25, 2024
and

DARRELL BOUTET, KEITH BOULET, and
CHRISTINE N. HUGHES,

               Appellees,

v                                                                      No. 364575
                                                                       Wayne Probate Court
DIANE BOUTET TENEROWICZ,                                               LC No. 2021-864392-TV

               Appellant.

Before: GLEICHER, P.J., and BORRELLO and SHAPIRO, JJ.

GLEICHER, P.J., (concurring).

        I reluctantly concur with the result reached by my colleagues in the majority. Were I
writing on a clean legal slate about a preserved legal issue, I would hold unenforceable the
conditions in the Bernard R. Boutet Trust requiring Boutet’s daughter, Diane Tenerowicz, to
identify the “biological father” of her son within 60 days of Boutet’s death, and to “tak[e] all
actions reasonably necessary to provide scientific evidence (including DNA) of the biological
fatherhood, including the taking of any medical examinations or testing.” In my view, these
conditions are contrary to public policy, and invalid on that ground.

        My public policy concerns rest on not only Tenerowicz’s right to privacy—but that of the
“biological father” as well.” For whatever reasons Tenerowicz decided against telling her father
or her son the name of his father, those reasons fall within the zone of her constitutionally protected
right to privacy, in my view. See Matter of Jessica XX, 54 NY2d 417, 434 n 2; 430 NE2d 896
(1981) (COOKE, J., dissenting) (“Whatever the motivations of a mother not to disclose the putative

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father’s existence, there may well be significant privacy interests that protect that decision and
militate against compelled disclosure[.]”) and Matter of Stephen, 239 AD2d 963, 963; 659 NYS2d
588 (1997) (“The birth mother has exercised her constitutional right to privacy not to disclose the
identity of the putative birth father[.]” Perhaps even more compelling here are the privacy rights
of the putative fathers to remain anonymous. Tenerowicz’s son is an adult, so there is not child
support at issue. Tenerowicz’s compliance with the trust’s conditions would require the putative
fathers to submit to DNA testing. They have every right to refuse such a request. Publicly
identifying them, even without requesting that they submit to DNA testing, destroys their rights to
keep secret highly personal information -- their long-ago love affairs with Tenerowicz.
        The Third Restatement of Trusts provides that “[a]n intended trust or trust provision is
invalid if . . . it is contrary to public policy.” 2 Restatement Trusts, 3d, § 29(c), pp 53-54. The
General Comment on this provision explains the rationale for this rule:

       The private trust is tolerated, even treasured, in the common-law world for the
       flexibility it offers to property owners in planning and designing diverse beneficial
       interests and financial protections over time, individually tailored as the particular
       property owner deems best to the varied needs, abilities, and circumstances of
       particular family members and others whom the owner chooses to benefit. Yet
       these societal and individual advantages are properly to be balanced against other
       social values and the effects of deadhand control on the subsequent conduct or
       personal freedoms of others, and also against the burdens a former owner’s
       unrestrained dispositions might place on courts to interpret and enforce
       individualized interests and conditions. [2 Restatement Trusts, 3d, § 29, comment
       i, p 60].

        Trust provisions “that tend to encourage criminal or tortious conduct on the part of
beneficiaries” should not be enforced, the Restatement suggests. 2 Restatement Trusts, 3d, § 29,
comment f, p 57. Similarly, “a policy of fostering free family interaction or privacy between
individuals, or simply society’s tolerance of human frailty, traditionally exempts acts of property
owners (and even their outright dispositions by will) from restrictions that would apply to
personally intrusive or socially dubious conditions in the distributive provisions of irrevocable
trusts.” 2 Restatement Trusts, 3d, § 29, comment i, pp 60-61. The Restatement further explains:

       Thus, although one is free to give property to another or to withhold it, it does not
       follow that one may give in trust with whatever terms or conditions one may wish
       to attach. This is particularly so of provisions that the law views as exerting a
       socially undesirable influence on the exercise or nonexercise of fundamental rights
       that significantly affect the personal lives of beneficiaries and often of others as
       well. [Id. at p 61.]

       A public policy argument was not raised in the trial court, however, and would likely have
been unsuccessful even had it been pursued. As the majority elucidates, our Supreme Court’s
decision in In re Erickson’s Estate, 346 Mich 432, 436; 78 NW2d 256 (1956), holds that a testator
may “attach to a gift in his will any lawful terms or conditions he [sees] fit.” This sweeping
pronouncement, which remains good law, seems to foreclose any public policy challenges to
testamentary bequests beyond those that are unlawful.

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        The language of Erickson’s Estate, however, potentially conflicts with MCL 700.7404,
which states that “[a] trust may be created only to the extent its purposes are lawful, not contrary
to public policy, and possible to achieve.” (Emphasis added). In In re Mardigian Estate, 502 Mich
154, 156; 917 NW2d 325 (2018), the Supreme Court rejected that a bequest to the attorney who
drafted the decedent’s will ran afoul of MCL 700.7404, even though a Michigan Rule of
Professional Conduct “generally prohibits an attorney from preparing an instrument giving the
attorney or his or her close family a substantial gift.” The Supreme Court determined in Mardigian
Estate that “the ‘purposes’ of the will and the trust were to bestow a gift to a friend, which in no
way is at odds with public policy.” Id. at 177. The Court continued: “Appellants fail to cite any
genuine public policy that runs contrary to the purposes of this will and this trust, but instead
merely take issue with the manner in which these instruments were formed, and thus their public
policy arguments are flawed.” Id.

        Mardigian Estate is readily distinguishable from this case. One of the “purposes” of the
trust provision involving Tenerowicz compelled her to disclose intensely personal information,
violating her privacy and that of the possible fathers of her son. A public policy analysis should
have been undertaken to explore whether Boutet’s conditional, “deadhand” bequest should be
enforced. The application of “public policy” to trust conditions such should be reconsidered by
our Supreme Court, particularly in light of the Legislature’s adoption of MCL 700.7404.

                                                             /s/ Elizabeth L. Gleicher

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