Smith v. Esslinger

Opinion

SILLS, P. J.

— The trustees of an inter vivas trust appeal from an order determining that the plaintiff beneficiary had not violated the trust’s “no contest” clause by filing the underlying petition. Because we hold the trustees do not have standing to appeal the order, we dismiss the appeal.

I

Paul and Marie Esslinger established an inter vivas trust in 1976 known as the Esslinger Family Trust. When Paul died in 1982, the trust corpus was divided into trust A, a revocable trust containing Marie’s share of the trust property, and trust B, an irrevocable trust containing the balance of the…