Family Wants to Move Their Money, But Contract Says They Can’t

The Tompkins family founded a construction company and built up a large fortune over the years. They were customers with Riggs Bank for almost 50 years, but then a money-laundering scandal was associated with Riggs and they wanted to take their money elsewhere.

In 2005, they moved two trust accounts to a company that was associated with Chevy Chase bank. A couple of the heirs now want to move the money again because they claim Chevy Chase brought in poor investment returns. They cannot move the money though because they signed an agreement at the outset that prohibited them from pulling the money away from Chevy Chase bank without the consent of all 94 beneficiaries of the trust. The family cannot secure unanimity, so now ten of the grandchildren are suing the bank for the right to pull the funds.

The lawsuit was filed in December in the probate division of Superior Court in Washington. The Tompkins heirs are trying to argue that Chevy Chase did not perform satisfactorily with their investments and broke their contract by selling the Chevy Chase Bank to Capital One Financial Group.

See Robin Sidel, A Family Loses Its Faith in Trust, The Wall Street Journal, Mar. 21, 2012.

Special thanks to Joel Dobris (Professor of Law, UC Davis School of Law) and Jim Hillhouse (Professional Legal Marketing (PLM, Inc.)) for bringing this article to my attention.