O’Quinn Estate is Harder to Manage than Executor Expected

T. Gerald Treece, a professor at South Texas College of Law, has spoken out about the challenges he has faced while serving as executor of John O’Quinn’s estate.

In the year since O’Quinn’s death, Treece has invested many hours in reducing the estate’s debt from $180 million to $75 million. Treece thinks that once O’Quinn’s remaining assets are sold and his law firm is wound up, there will be property for the John M. O’Quinn Foundation.

Treece has also struggled with:

• False or unenforceable claims against O’Quinn’s estate.
• Settling a class action suit against O’Quinn brought by his former breast implant clients.
• Battling Darla Lexington, who claims to be O’Quinn’s common law wife, with regard to 28 of O’Quinn’s 870 classic cars and 750 acres of O’Quinn’s 5,000-acre ranch.
• Battling a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the wife and son of Cutliff, O’Quinn’s employee who died in the car crash with O’Quinn.

For more details on the O’Quinn estate battles, see Brenda Sapino Jeffreys, WWJO’QD? As Executor of Friend’s Estate, T. Gerald Treece Asks Himself “What Would John O’Quinn Do?”, Texas Lawyer, Nov. 1, 2010.

Special thanks to Barrett Shipp (attorney, San Antonio, Texas) for bringing this to my attention.