Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Massachusetts

Re: Beneficiary to wrongful death case

I am sorry to hear about your situation; it sounds enormously frustrating.

You mentioned that you are a beneficiary of a trust and also an heir at law under the will. Your rights under each are slightly different. If this is a wrongful death case and the case was brought by your sister as executrix of the will and not as trustee of the trust, there are a few things you can do. For one thing, you can file a petition to compel your sister to file an update "inventory" and accounting of the estate. The court routinely allows these (since, in theory, accounting are to be made to the court and heirs at law on an annual basis). In this inventory and accounting, your sister would have to disclose any payments she received under the settlement. Let's assume for discussion sake that she complies with this order. If you have reason to believe she's not disclosing all of the payments received as part of the settlement, you can petition to have her removed as executrix. In the course of this proceeding, you could learn ( by subpoena to the insurance company making the settlement payment or payments) the details of those payments. If the insurance company's records show more payments than have been disclosed, you have good grounds to have your sister removed as executrix. On the other hand, it is entirely possible that the case is still pending and has not been settled, in which event it would be fairly easy to find that case in the appropriate court and to go to the courthouse and review the case file (unless it's in federal court, in which event the relevant papers can be viewed online). Please contact me if you wish to further discuss this.

Re: Beneficiary to wrongful death case

Assuming the Estate is being probated in MA, you can file a demand for an accounting and seek the removal of your sister as Executor of the estate.

If the estate is in IL, then you should hire an IL probate attorney to deal with issues there. An IL attorney should be able to get the information and a proper accounting as to the use of the funds.

Some of this will be expensive, but it should get results.

However, are you a current beneficiary or a contingent beneficiary. By this I mean are you entitled to the money directly once the estate is closed or is someone else ahead of you, such as your mother.

Good Luck