California Supreme Court Confirms Former Beneficiary’s Standing to Contest Trusts

Kevin O’Brien discusses the Barefoot v. Jennings decision in the article, “California Supreme Court Confirms Former Beneficiary’s Standing to Contest Trust,” published on The Recorder. To the relief of many trusts and estates practitioners, the court’s decision brings an end to the short-lived ‘Barefoot’ era in trusts and estates litigation. Does a former beneficiary of a trust have standing under section 17200 to petition the probate court for an order invalidating the current version of a trust? The fact pattern in Barefoot is not unusual. A parent set up a living trust and named her children as beneficiaries. The parent made amendments to her trust that favored some of her children over others and, ultimately, disinherited one of her children entirely. After the parent died, the disinherited child challenged the validity of the offending trust amendments based on incompetence, undue influence, and fraud.

In Barefoot, the probate court dismissed the petition for lack of standing, and the appellate court affirmed. In reaching this decision, the appellate court concluded that petitioner, as a former beneficiary, was a trust outsider seeking to “contest[] the internal affairs” of the current trust instrument.