Enterprising fiduciary litigation plaintiffs’ lawyers will often look to open up multiple fronts in litigation – a suit in state court, a claim in probate court, and a federal court lawsuit. But, if the defense is paying attention, this strategy seldom works in trust litigation. Why? Because of the Princess Lida doctrine. The Princess Lida doctrine is also known as the doctrine of prior exclusive jurisdiction. If a lawsuit is in rem or quasi in rem, which means that a court must have possession of or some control over the property in order to grant the relief sought, then the first court to exercise jurisdiction over the case gets jurisdiction to the exclusion of all other courts. Since many trust cases require a court to exercise jurisdiction over the corpus of the trust, that means that the first court to get a case involving the