Spinnato v. Boyd

Citations

• 231 Conn. App. 460

Syllabus

The defendant C, a beneficiary of a trust that consisted primarily of a certain piece of real property and that terminated upon the death of his mother, the decedent, appealed from the trial court's judgment for the plaintiff, individually and in her fiduciary capacities, on the complaint in part and on C's counterclaim. C claimed, inter alia, that the court improperly deter- mined that the trust instrument did not require the sale of the trust property within one year of the decedent's death. Held: The trial court properly interpreted the term ''liquidate'' in the trust instru- ment to include actions other than a sale of the trust property, as contempo- rary dictionary definitions of ''liquidate'' and the discretion afforded to the plaintiff by the trust instrument and the relevant statute (§ 45a-235) sup- ported the conclusion that the decedent intended to permit the trustees to distribute the interests of the beneficiaries in an alternative manner to a sale of the trust property. The trial court properly concluded that the trust instrument did not require the plaintiff to sell the trust property within one year of the decedent's death because the discretion afforded to the trustees in the trust instrument demonstrated that the decedent contemplated the possibility that the trust- ees could distribute the property outside of the one year timeline prescribed in the trust instrument. The trial court properly rendered judgment for the plaintiff on the breach of fiduciary duty claim in C's counterclaim because, although it found that the plaintiff had engaged in self-dealing and had failed to establish by clear and convincing evidence that such self-dealing was otherwise fair to C, the court also found that the plaintiff was acting in good faith and was therefore shielded from liability pursuant to a provision in the trust instrument. This court declined to review C's claim that the trial court improperly refused to impute knowledge of the terms of the trust instrume