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to trust assets, the legal expenses incurred in defense of the
lawsuit were deductible.
Moore Trust v. Commissioner, supra, and Estate of Barnhart
v. Commissioner, supra, are distinguishable from the present case
because the principal focus of Garland's lawsuit was to
invalidate the Trust. Distilled to their essence, Garland's
claims originated in his attempt to obtain a larger share of Mr.
Stevens’ estate. The claims required the trial court to address
whether the Trust received title to the corpus validly or by
virtue of undue influence. The origin of the claims in Garland's
lawsuit was Garland's desire to eliminate the Trust. Only then
could he assert a claim to the assets as Mr. Stevens’ heir.
In a final effort to salvage some part of a deduction for
the litigation costs which she incurred, petitioner argues that,
at a minimum, we should allocate the costs among the various
claims for relief contained in Garland's complaint and then allow
a deduction for that portion of the costs that qualifies for
deduction under section 212. She cites Dye v. United States, 121
F.3d 1399, 1406 (10th Cir. 1997),9 in support. Although the
decision in Dye v. United States stands for the proposition that
an allocation must be made among different causes of action in
appropriate cases, this is not such a case. The claims for
9The present case is appealable to the Court of Appeals for
the Tenth Circuit.
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