For how long estate planners have been using interconnections between trusts and family entities as estate planning techniques, only recently have appellate courts outside of New York started to tackle these issues in reported decisions.  In In re Estate of Stuchlik (as modified, in part, here), the Supreme Court of Nebraska addressed – but did not answer – a question left open by the Supreme Court of Georgia in Rollins v. Rollins: what’s the appropriate standard of care when a trust holds a controlling interest in a family entity?

Edward J. Stuchlik, Jr. and his wife, Margaret, had a pretty common estate plan.  They formed a limited partnership into which they conveyed all the farm real

When trustees are put in control of family entities held in trust, it may pay to clearly differentiate the capacity in which the trustee takes an action.  Is the trustee taking a trustee-level action or is the trustee taking a corporate/partnership/entity-level action?

When we last looked at Rollins v. Rollins, the Georgia Supreme Court was holding that where, under the terms of a trust, a trustee is put in control of a corporate entity in which the trust owns a minority interest, the trustee should be held to a corporate level fiduciary standard when it comes to his or her corporate duties or actions.  The Georgia Supreme Court then remanded the case to the Georgia Court of Appeals for further consideration in light of that standard.

In the latest round of Rollins v. Rollins, the Georgia Court