• Blog Post

    Breach of Fiduciary Duty vs. Constructive Fraud – Which Claim Do You Have?

    Breach of Fiduciary Duty:               A fiduciary is an individual or corporation to whom property or power is entrusted for the benefit of another.  Fiduciaries must prudently care for any such assets, and may also have a number of additional duties, depending on the nature of their fiduciary relationship.  These duties include, without limitation: a duty of good faith and fair dealing, a duty of loyalty, a duty of impartiality, a duty to delegate, a duty to inform, and a duty to maintain adequate records.             To succeed on a breach of fiduciary duty claim, the plaintiff must prove…

  • Uncategorized

    Breach of Trustees’ Fiduciary Duty – Part 3: Duty to Administer Trusts Prudently and Duty to Inform, Report, and Maintain Adequate Records

              In Part 2 of this series, we examined trustees’ duties of loyalty and impartiality.  This post will examine the duty to administer trusts prudently and Part 4 will discuss the duty to delegate – or not delegate – in more depth.  The duty to administer trusts involves the basic values of good faith, while the duty to inform, report, and maintain adequate records involves the reasonableness of a trustee’s actions.  While these principals seem straight forward, they are a bit nuanced in practice.     Duty to Administer Trusts Prudently             The duty to administer trusts prudently mandates trustees carry…