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Durham v. Durham

The Supreme Court does not have jurisdiction over equity cases involving the proper interpretation of a trust provision.

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The question presented by these two cases is whether appeals that involve the proper interpretation of a trust provision come within this Court’s general appellate jurisdiction over “equity cases,” Ga. Const. of 1983, Art. VI, Sec. VI, Par. III 2, because the resolution of that legal issue will affect the administration of the trust. Consistent with our precedent on this question, we conclude that such cases do not come within our equity jurisdiction.

1. These cases arise from a declaratory judgment action filed by trustee William E. Callaway, Jr., seeking to determine the effect of an in terrorem clause in an express trust. The donor, Marjorie H. Durham, executed the inter vivos trust in 2000, naming herself as a beneficiary and her four children as residual beneficiaries. Mrs. Durham died in 2009. In 2010, the trustee filed a complaint for declaratory judgment against the four trust beneficiaries, seeking an order declaring that three of the beneficiaries, Wallace Durham, Hugh Durham, and Lucinda Durham Willard, had forfeited their respective interests in the trust estate under the in terrorem clause and that the entirety of the estate should therefore be distributed to the fourth beneficiary, Lawrence Durham.1 Lawrence filed a counterclaim and a cross-claim and later moved for summary judgment, alleging that because he was the only child who did not violate the in terrorem clause, he is the sole beneficiary of the residue of the trust estate. Lucinda also filed a motion for summary judgment, alleging that she had not violated the in terrorem clause and remains a valid beneficiary of the trust. On July 6, 2011, the trial court granted Lucinda’s motion for summary judgment, and on July 12, the court denied Lawrence’s motion for summary judgment.

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