Check out the EstateofDenial.com News Archive for two pieces on litigation involving Texas State Representative Paula Pierson (D-HD 93) and her husband, attorney Grey Pierson.  The two are involved in a lawsuit regarding the estate of businessman Robert Arlington.

Thank you to the Texas Insider’s Jim Cardle for calling attention to this case. The new media, including blogs and other web sites, are increasingly significant contributors to generating important news content.  This case definitely serves as an example.

As background, a March 24, 2008, Star-Telegram.com (Fort Worth, TX) blog first reported “Former friends and allies of state Rep. Paula Pierson, D-Arlington, allege the freshman lawmaker and her husband improperly gained control of their family’s estate, touching off a bitter dispute that could reverberate in the November elections.”  That gets EoD attention because, if true, this certainly falls into our focus area as an Involuntary Redistribution of Assets (IRA) case in which probate instruments like wills, trusts or guardianships are used to distribute assets in a manner contrary to the asset owner’s intentions.  These cases are sometimes also orchestrated through use of undue influence.

Cardle and the Texas Insider are providing additional information on the lawsuit, its legal implications as well as the potential political consequences for Paula Pierson as retention of her House of Representatives seat is currently being challenged by Republican Bill Burch.

Read the accounts for yourself and please allow our addition of these points.  First, to our detractors:  here’s another case!  If IRA acts are so isolated, why does EoD have a backlog of information which we are constantly juggling so as to provide timely and relevant reporting on probate venues and instruments being used to loot assets and poach property?

Also, as we have seen in the Terry Erwin Stork and Stuart Stein (Howard Hughes estate litigation) cases, the legal system allows attorneys to engage in significant misconduct long before any professional consequences might occur.  Should illegal or unethical acts be proven with this case, let’s see if meaningful action is taken opposed to “covering for their own” as is more often the case within the legal profession.

And finally — Paula Pierson is an elected official, a woman in a position of public trust and charged to serve the best interest of Texans.  EstateofDenial.com regularly discusses the lack of criminal prosecutions attached to IRA cases.  This is our standard position:

Go into a bank and steal $300,000 – you’ll likely have some legal issues.  Steal the same amount out of an estate – criminal prosecutions are nearly non-existent and many heirs can’t afford or emotionally weather a civil court battle.  And depending upon your legal standing, it may not really be a crime, just an immoral (but non-illegal) betrayal.

Stealing from the dead or disabled/incapacitated is an incredibly indecent act.  We hope voters in Texas House District 93 are taking a serious look at this race.  If someone is found to be stealing from the dead, could they ever be trusted to do right by the living?