Salem United Methodist Church v. Bottorff

JEFFREY W. BATES, Judge.

The unusual issue presented in this appeal is whether a Missouri trust can be revoked by physical act, rather than by compliance with the method of revocation specified in the trust. This question arose because, after the settlor’s death, all three signed copies of his amended trust were discovered with the distributive provisions torn from the documents. The trial court ruled that the amended trust was still valid because the evidence presented was insufficient to support the conclusion that the distributive provisions were torn out by the settlor with the intent to…