Legendary Radioman’s Foundation Sues Lawyer For Fraud

Himan Brown was a radio legend due to his creation and perfection of the radio drama that once dominated the airwaves with such hits as “Dick Tracy” and “The Adventures of the Thin Man.” In his later years, he fell out with his family and dedicated his $100 million fortune to a specially created charity to encouraging the art of radio drama. However, several years before his death, he signed over the bulk of his estate to a new charity that had his longtime lawyer as trustee. Now, the family of Mr. Brown are suing claiming that the lawyer fraudulently induced him to shift the money away from another organization and that it is now being used for the lawyer’s own benefit.. According to court documents, the charity controlled by the lawyer has made multiple distributions to legitimate charities but the family claims they are being targeted at institutes that will bring him clients and benefit his family when it comes to attending certain prestigious schools rather than promoting the arts. However, a previous lawsuit challenging the validity of Brown’s will resulted in defeat for the family when the court found that Brown was in full control of his mental faculties when he executed the document. No word on when a trial is expected to occur.

See James C. McKinley Jr., Charity’s Suit Contests Will of Creator of ‘Dick Tracy’ and Other Radio Shows, The New York Times, January 19, 2016.

Special thanks to Joel Dobris (Professor of Law, UC Davis School of Law) for bringing this article to my attention.

The following update is provided through the courtesy of Timothy Gilles, Communications Advisor to Carter, Ledyard & Milburn and Radio Drama Network, Inc.

Please be aware of three factual issues in the above summary, which we understand is necessarily very brief. The issues are: 

First, Himan Brown was not estranged from his entire family, only from his son.

Second, the lawsuit discussed above was not filed by the family, and no members of the family would benefit financially from it.

Third, the suit does not allege that Mr. Brown lacked mental capacity. Instead, the suit alleges that he was tricked into signing deceptively written estate documents that were counter to his wishes. 

On the first issue, Himan Brown had eight descendants: a son, a daughter, two granddaughters (by the son), and four great-grandchildren. Mr. Brown and his son, Barry Brown, had a contentious relationship, and Barry sued both his father and, later, his father’s estate. However, none of the other seven family members joined those suits, nor were they estranged from Mr. Brown. He saw most of them regularly and supported them financially during his lifetime. He left substantial bequests to the daughter and two granddaughters and set up trust funds for college for the four great-grandchildren.

 A New York Times profile of Mr. Brown in 2003 said that in his later years he had “turned his energy to life with his second wife,… to his two granddaughters and four great-grandchildren, and to charity,” further evidence of his closeness to the family members other than his son. (See links below.)

 Mr. Brown continued to be in close touch with these family members until the end of his life, and several of them, as well as his son’s ex-wife, provided extensive personal and health care for him in his last several years, enabling him to remain in his beloved Central Park West apartment until his death at age 99.

 As to the second issue, the current suit against Richard Kay, Mr. Brown’s lawyer, was filed by a foundation, Radio Drama Network, Inc., which was created by Himan Brown in 1982. The Foundation had been the residuary beneficiary of Brown’s revocable trust until the revocable trust agreement was amended in 2004 as a result of the alleged fraud by Mr. Kay. Although Mr. Brown’s two grandchildren serve on the Board of the Foundation, neither they nor any others in the family would benefit financially in any way if the suit is successful.

 On the third issue, Brown’s mental capacity is not being challenged in the foundation’s lawsuit. The suit alleges that the crucial change to his estate documents was drafted by the lawyer in a deliberately deceptive manner, leading Brown to think that he was bequeathing the bulk of his estate to Radio Drama Network, consistent with all prior iterations of his estate plan. Instead, the residuary estate was directed to a newly formed charitable trust, for which the lawyer is the sole trustee. The residuary estate amounted to about $98 million, and the hundreds of grants approved by the lawyer since Mr. Brown’s death have not supported radio drama in any way.

 For those who are interested, The New York Times not only wrote a lengthy story about the filing of the case, but also posted the entire petition on its website. See links below.

Story about lawsuit: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/20/nyregion/charitys-suit-contests-will-of-creator-of-dick-tracy-and-other-radio-shows.html

 Legal papers: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/01/19/nyregion/document-lawsuit-over-himan-brown-estate.html

2003 profile of Himan Brown: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/07/nyregion/keeping-his-foot-in-a-creaking-door-radio-pioneer-clings-to-imagination.html)