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proper party petitioner, we do not have to consider the merits of
whether the trust arrangement was an illegal scheme. Mr.
Siebert, however, concluded his explanation with the
acknowledgment and confirmation that he, as a trustee, agreed to
terminate the trust and that the attorneys for the trustee signed
an agreement rendering the trust void. On the last point, Mr.
Siebert asserts that neither the trustees nor their attorneys
have legal standing to void the trust, ab initio or otherwise.
Here again, Mr. Siebert provides no legal precedent for his
position.
We are satisfied, based on the certified copy of the final
judgment of the District Court of Bosque County, Texas, that a
court of competent jurisdiction has rendered the trust void ab
initio. Any infirmity that may exist in that final judgment must
be addressed in the Texas courts where the trust was voided. Mr.
Siebert has not provided any ground for this Court to question
the effect or validity of the Texas court’s judgment and has not
shown that he remains qualified under State law to continue as
the petitioner in this proceeding.
This is the first case to consider a fiduciary’s claim that
he remains empowered to pursue litigation where the trust from
which his authority was derived has been voided ab initio. By
way of analogy, we have decided that a petition filed by a
trustee after the termination of the trust was not valid. See
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Last modified: May 25, 2011