Court Rules Not to Include Spendthrift Trust in Divisible Marital Estate

Provided below is a summary of Pfannenstiehl v. Pfannenstiehl, Mass. Supreme Judicial Court (August 4, 2016):

In this appeal from a judgment of divorce, the court is asked to determine whether the present value of a husband’s beneficial interest in a discretionary spendthrift trust may be included in the parties’ divisible marital estate. As part of the judgment of divorce in 2012, a judge in the Probate and Family Court awarded the wife 60% of her husband’s interest in the present value of the trust. At the time, the trust was valued at $2,265,474.31. The husband appealed, arguing that the judge abused her discretion by including the trust in the marital estate. In a divided opinion, the Appeals Court affirmed. This court granted the husband’s application for further appellate review, limited to issues concerning the trust.

The court conclude that the husband’s interest in the trust is “so speculative as to constitute nothing more than [an] expectanc[y],” and thus that it is “not assignable to the marital estate.”

Special thanks to Naomi Cahn (Harold H. Greene Professor of Law, George Washington University School of Law) for bringing this article to my attention.