As the summer days pass us by, we examine the decisions of the past several months that impacted the field of trusts and estates. Addressing such issues as the statute of limitations and constructive trust, dismissal of a removal proceeding and choice of law, and lifetime transfers by an attorney-in-fact, the following opinions of interest are worth noting.

Appellate Division Weighs In on Issues of Statute of Limitations and Constructive Trust 

Before the Appellate Division, First Department, in In re Newman, 2024 NY Slip Op 03544 (1st Dept 2024), was an appeal from a decree of the Surrogate’s Court, New York County, which, inter alia, dismissed the petitions for a turnover and the imposition of a constructive trust. The subject petitions were filed by the preliminary executor of the decedent’s estate against the estate of the decedent’s predeceased daughter based on decedent’s allegations in an affidavit, filed by her in support of a pre-death claim against her daughter’s estate, that she had transferred her life savings to her daughter in reliance upon her daughter’s promise to invest the funds for decedent’s benefit and, ultimately, divide same in equal thirds among the daughter and decedent’s two sons.