Grassfield v. Grassfield

In 2003, 76-year-old Bruce Grassfield created a revocable trust. The trust documents required two trustees and required that both trustees act unanimously for all decisions and actions under the trust. The trust provided that Bruce could amend or revoke it any time if he put the change in writing, a notary witnessed his signature, and the writing was delivered to both trustees. Initially, Bruce and his financial advisor were the two trustees. In 2016, Bruce properly amended the trust to remove the advisor and name his son Paul Grassfield (plaintiff) as his cotrustee. In 2018, Bruce signed a document stating that he was amending the trust to remove Paul and would continue as the sole trustee. This writing also removed Paul as the trust’s primary beneficiary and named Violetta Lashauri-Wofsey, the future Violetta Grassfield (defendant), as the trust’s primary beneficiary. This document was notarized but never delivered to Paul. Bruce then married Violetta. In 2019, Bruce signed two more documents that were notarized but not delivered to Paul. These documents claimed to amend the trust to give more assets to Violetta, to name her as the successor trustee after Bruce’s death, and to pour the trust’s assets into Bruce’s estate at his death. Bruce also amended his will to name Violetta as the sole beneficiary of his estate. Bruce died a few months later at age 92. Paul filed a civil action in Florida state court to invalidate the purported 2018 and 2019 trust amendments. The trial court granted summary judgment for Paul. Violetta appealed to the Florida court of appeal.