Estate Of Wild

708 A.2d 273 (Me. 1998)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

Elinor died testate in June of 1985. Her will was admitted to probate in the Lincoln County Probate Court, and her husband, William was appointed the personal representative of the estate. William distributed certain real and tangible personal property to himself. The residue of the estate was distributable to the trustee of the Elinor M. Wilde Revocable Trust. The corpus of that trust was divided into two shares, the Marital Trust and the Family Trust. William did not distribute the share of the residuary allocable to the Family Trust to the trustee. It consisted of stock in Aetna, CIGNA, and Honeywell valued at $343,819.25 on the date of Elinor's death. William retained some of the assets, sold others, and commingled both the assets and the proceeds with his own personal assets. More than a decade after Elinor's death, shortly before his own death on November 10, 1995, William delivered cash, stocks, bonds, and securities valued at $403,555.00 to the successor trustee of the Revocable Trust for delivery to the Family Trust. The successor trustee then petitioned the Probate Court to compel an order of complete settlement of Elinor's estate. The personal representative of William's estate filed an accounting stating that, as of the date of William's death, his estate was accountable to the successor trustee for cash and securities having a value of $320,563.24. The successor trustee objected to the accounting, contending that the amount due was significantly higher. The trustee asserted that the damages should be determined not with reference to the increase in value of the inception assets, but by reference to the value that would have been attained had those assets been invested in an S & P 500 Index Fund throughout the decade. The parties stipulated to the numbers; at Elinor's death ($343,819.25), at William's death ($724,118.24), the value turned over to the trust by William ($403,555.00), the value of the inception assets at William's death had they been invested in an S & P 500 Index Fund ($1,080,280.00), and the value of those assets at William's death had they been managed by a prudent trustee ($860,000.00). They asked the court to pick the amount owed. The court chose the S&P determination which means that William's estate owed $676,725.00. This appeal by William's estate followed.