This case involves a dispute over trusts associated with a large estate. It comes to our Court for the third time, having also twice visited the Supreme Court of Georgia.1 The case began in 2010 when four of the nine beneficiaries2 of trusts set up by their grandfather, successful businessman O. Wayne Rollins the Settlor, sued their father, Gary W. Rollins, and their uncle, R. Randall Rollins, individually and as trustees; and Henry B. Tippie, as trustee collectively, the Defendants. Their amended complaint alleged, in brief, breaches of trust and of fiduciary duty regarding a failure to make proper accountings, making trust investments in illiquid family-owned entities, creating a conduct-based distribution scheme, creating conflicts of interest, and failing to maximize income distributions. They also asserted claims for an accounting, constructive fraud/recision, and fraudulent misrepresentation. Rollins IV, supra at 163-164. The parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment. The trial court ruled in the Defendants’ favor on each of the Plaintiffs’ claims, except for a breach of trust claim related to the Defendants’ failure, at any time prior to the filing of the suit, to make required periodic accountings to the Plaintiffs of the assets held in the trusts. See id. at 164 and n. 6. The Plaintiffs filed the instant appeal, which continues to wend its way between our appellate courts.
In their original appeal before this Court, see Rollins I, supra, the Plaintiffs argued that the trial court erred in not granting them an accounting of the business entities, held within the trusts, which hold trust assets. They also argued that the trial court erred in failing to rule that: the Defendants breached their fiduciary duties or duties of trust by their conduct at the business entity level, rather than at the trust level; in creating a false and misleading distribution scheme imposing conduct-based requirements not found in any trust instrument; by replacing marketable securities in the trusts with illiquid investments in debt-ridden trust entities under the trustees’ permanent control; in ruling that the Plaintiffs had to show actual harm to prevail on their fiduciary duty claims and in finding that they were not harmed by being cut off from trust distributions and assets; and in granting summary judgment to the Defendants because material factual disputes remained.
