Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in California

He is right, a judge is going to wonder why you did not complain until now. Also, you are not an heir; you are a benificary under a Trust. For a class action suit you need to find several other people who had the same thing happen to them by the same bank. Such suits are very expensive, time consuming, and difficult. You can contact an attorney who does class action litigation to find out if there have been any such suits against that bank.

I would think that it is a violation of their fudiciary duty to invest the Trust assets in their own stock. You should get the bank to resign as trustee and to compensate the Trust for the loss in revenues. You should see an attorney who specializing in this type of work.

As trustee of the trust, the bank is subject to what is known as the "prudent investor rule."

Under that rule, a trustee must invest and manage trust assets as a prudent investor would, by considering the the purposes, terms, distribution requirements, and other circumstances of the trust. In satisfying this standard, the trustee must exercise reasonable care, skill, and caution. I suggest you do some preliminary research into the prudent investor rule in California, to get an idea of what it is you are dealing with.

The bank employee's comment concerns time limits. Your right to challenge the bank's actions may be limited when they gave you annual accountings in the past, and I can tell you that it is too late to complain about things the bank did in the 80's or even the 90's.

I also doubt that you have the requisite requirements for a class action. You should speak to an attorney who has handled and is familiar with trust litigation involving trusts administered by financial institutions.