Leona Helmsley’s Multi-Billion Dollar Trust May Benefit Dogs

It seems that Leona Helmsley’s love for dogs extended way beyond her own canine, Trouble.

The following is from Stephanie Strom, Helmsley, Dogs’ Best Friend, Left Them Billions, NY Times, July 2, 2008:

Her instructions, specified in a two-page “mission statement,” are that the entire trust, valued at $5 billion to $8 billion and amounting to virtually all her estate, be used for the care and welfare of dogs, according to two people who have seen the document and who described it on condition of anonymity.

It is by no means clear, however, that all the money will go to dogs. Another provision of the mission statement says Mrs. Helmsley’s trustees may use their discretion in distributing the money, and some lawyers say the statement may not mean much anyway, given that its directions were not incorporated into Mrs. Helmsley’s will or the trust documents.

“The statement is an expression of her wishes that is not necessarily legally binding,” said William Josephson, a lawyer who was the chief of the Charities Bureau in the New York State attorney general’s office from 1999 to 2004.

Still, longstanding laws favor adherence to a donor’s intent, and the mission statement is the only clear expression of Mrs. Helmsley’s charitable intentions. That will make the document difficult for her trustees, as well as the probate court and state charity regulators, to ignore.

Special thanks to Joshua C. Tate (Assistant Professor of Law, SMU Dedman School of Law) for being the first reader to bring this development to my attention.