Legal Question in Business Law in California

My husband was in a partnership with his five brothers and a developer, renting a business building for more than 15 years. They dissolved the partnership 5 years ago through court ruling due to the dispute of the widow of one of the brothers. The money that came from the sales of the building was distributed accordingly, except for an amount that was held in court. That considerable amount of money was held because the widow claimed that it belonged to her since it came from an acount that was in the names of the five brothers, but that the father of the brothers meant for the money to be given to her husband only who died 10 years prior to the dissolution. There is no evidence that supports her claim and the father has already denied that. She never went through the legal procedure to get the money she claimed and the money is kept in the lawyer's office. Do we have any way to claim the unclaimed money according to our share? Do we need to go through lawyer to claim our money back?


Asked on 2/08/11, 4:45 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Bryan Whipple Bryan R. R. Whipple, Attorney at Law

After five years, the court action is probably completed, and somewhere in the documentation in the court's file there may be some key, or some clue, as to how that money held by a lawyer should be disbursed. To put it another way, the facts given suggest a legal action that has been fully decided and a court decision or order that hasn't been carried out. I could be wrong, but judges do not ordinarily wind up cases by allowing funds to sit in an attorney's trust account for years after judgment. If you send me the case particulars (case number and court name) directly, I will look up the court records of the outcome of the case and give you my opinion as to why the money is still sitting in an attorney trust account (let's hope!) and who should receive it, or perhaps whether further legal action is necessary to resolve the partnership's affairs.

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Answered on 2/08/11, 5:07 pm


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