Today, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that Iowa law does not allow a person to control the final disposition of her remains.  In a split decision, the Court held that Iowa’s Final Disposition Act, Chapter 144C, provides a comprehensive and exclusive scheme for determining a person’s final resting place, and the person’s wishes are not a part of that scheme.  The Act was enacted in 2008, and allows a person to designate a competent adult to have the “sole responsibility and discretion for making decisions concerning the final disposition of the declarant’s remains.”  But the Act does not allow a person to directly control her final disposition, nor does the Act require a designee to follow the wishes of the decedent, even if those wishes are crystal clear.

In today’s case, In re Whalen, the decedent’s wishes to be buried in a specific cemetery in Montana were clearly specified in her will, and also in a letter the decedent wrote to her children and her estranged husband just two months before her death.  That letter was also provided to the director of the funeral home that provided services for the decedent.  The court admitted that the decedent’s wishes were “well established,” but determined that Iowa law makes those wishes irrelevant.  In the absence of a declaration that meets the requirements of the Final Disposition Act, the surviving spouse has the sole power to control a decedent’s final remains.

Chief Justice Cady dissented, joined by Justice Zager.  He argued that the Final Dispositions Act was only intended to be operative when the decedent’s wishes were not clearly expressed, and that the legislature “did not intend to replace the timeless and fundamental ability” of Iowans “to direct for themselves their funeral arrangements and final disposition of their remains.”

Today, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that a beneficiary of a revocable trust has no right to obtain an accounting of trust activities that occurred while the trust’s settlor was alive and competent, even when someone other than the settlor is serving as trustee of the trust. Rather, the trustee’s duty to account runs solely to the settlor.

The Court’s opinion emphasized the settlor’s interest in privacy and the lower expenses of trust administration as compared to estate administration, two of the most common reasons people create revocable trusts, and noted that both of those interests would be compromised by a ruling that granted accounting rights to beneficiaries other than the settlor.  The Court also noted that a beneficiary under a will has no right to obtain information about the decedent’s financial transactions prior to death. Since a revocable trust is a common will substitute, the beneficiaries’ rights under a revocable trust should be comparable to those under a will.

Finally, the Court reversed the district court’s ruling that held the trustee personally liable for her attorney fees incurred in defending her refusal to account, as well as the beneficiary’s attorney fees incurred in pursuing the accounting.  Since the trustee’s position was reasonable and she was ultimately the prevailing party on the accounting issue, the court ordered her fees to be paid from the trust.  Meanwhile, the beneficiary was ordered to pay her fees personally.  It surely did not help the beneficiary’s cause that of the sixteen other trust beneficiaries, fourteen sided with the trustee and none with the beneficiary.

The case, which you’ll be shocked to learn was a family dispute “grounded on pre-existing animosity” between the trustee and beneficiary (who are sisters), is In re Trimble.

Today the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that a surviving husband who elects against his wife’s will is not entitled to any portion of her pay-on-death (POD) assets that pass outside of probate.  The case, Estate of Myers, is the Court’s first significant foray into elective share issues since deciding in 2006 that elective share rights extend to assets held in a revocable trust, and not just those passing under a will.  Sieh v. Sieh, 713 N.W.2d 194.

In an opinion by Justice Waterman, the Court acknowledged that the same rationale for subjecting revocable trust assets to the elective share applies to POD assets as well – in both cases, the decedent has complete control over the assets at all times prior to death.  However, the Court ruled that the legislature’s 2009 amendment of the elective share statute both codified and limited the holding in Sieh, such that its rationale applies only to revocable trusts and not to other non-probate assets.  The Court appeared sympathetic to the public policy arguments of the spouse, but directed him to make those arguments to the legislature.  The Myers case is here.  Sieh is here.