Glassell estate trial seeks to overturn Houston oilman’s last will
Lou Ann Anderson
November 10, 2009
www.EstateofDenial.com

The Glassell estate trial, Houston’s latest high profile probate dispute, once more illustrates that a clearly stated will in no way guarantees avoidance of future legal conflicts.  At issue is distribution of the half-billion-dollar estate that belonged to oil pioneer and cultural philanthropist Alfred C. Glassell Jr.  Per the Houston Chronicle, his daughter, Curry Glassell, “is contesting his most recent of nine wills, claiming lawyers coerced him into shrinking her share of the estate and bequeathing it to charity.”

The Chronicle further describes the parties involved as:

Alone on one side of the dispute, arguing in favor of a 1998 will, is the oilman’s daughter Curry Glassell.

She is a 52-year-old single mother of two who attended the New School, a Greenwich Village-based progressive university. She’s active in the “Good Vibes for You” bottled water company and lists herself as an “Access Consciousness” facilitator.

On the other side of the lawsuit is a formidable crowd. It includes her younger brother, Alfred Glassell III, who followed his father’s footsteps into the River Oaks Country Club and society column charity balls; their father’s widow, Clare Attwell Glassell; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and the Glassell Family Foundation, a charity run by Alfred Glassell III and expected to benefit Houston art. This group wants Probate Court Judge Kathy Stone to abide by the last will, signed in 2003.

The estate reportedly could be worth up to $600 million with each of the Glassell siblings having been given trust accounts of more than $15 million each.  Oil and gas leases are also said to have contributed income and the final will “grants Curry $3 million and a future interest in an oil well now paying out about $6 million a year.”

Alfred C. Glassell Jr. was a long-time supporter of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.  Here’s how Bloomberg.com described his commitment:

It will be difficult to persuade jurors that the museum didn’t have a special place in Alfred C. Glassell Jr.’s heart, museum lawyer Joe Jamail said in an interview. As chairman of the museum’s board of trustees in the 1990s, Glassell led a capital campaign that raised $112 million to build an exhibition wing that doubled the museum’s size in 2000, making it the nation’s fifth-largest.

The most visible sign of the oilman’s support was his 1979 donation of the Glassell School of Art, which serves as the MFAH’s teaching wing.

“The museum was a big part of his life,” Jamail said. “He even tried to train the docents who showed people around the museum.”

During his lifetime, Glassell also gave the museum more than 1,000 gold artifacts in three collections of West African, Indonesian and Pre-Columbian art. MFAH claims the U.S.’s largest collection of Akan gold art from Ghana and Ivory Coast, as well as the biggest collection of Indonesian gold art outside of Jakarta, almost all donated by Glassell.

Trial like this are usually accompanied by a cadre of high-powered attorneys.  This one is no exception and the attorneys themselves have histories worth noting.  Vinson & Elkins, the legal firm representing the museum, is a controversial entity and the firm’s ties with Enron still seem fresh in terms of public memory.  Per the Chronicle, Curry Glassell’s attorneys characterize them as follows:

“We have a very long, long history of what Mr. Glassell wanted to do with his property in his wills. It changed radically right at the very end,” said Jack Lawter, one of the attorneys for the daughter.

He argued that Vinson & Elkins lawyers, who drew up all of the elder Glassell’s wills, pushed him into moving his money to the foundation and his artifacts to the MFAH because that would mean more future work for the attorneys.

Curry’s lawyers said the elder Glassell forgot a painting he promised his daughter, didn’t finish paperwork on some oil leases he gave to his daughter’s trust and forgot other important things.

Jim Hartnett, another lawyer for Curry, argued that the elder Glassell was subject to a “new fund-raising technique” in which folks such as the MFAH’s Peter and Frances Marzio told Glassell that they loved him.

“They aren’t family, they are people who want his money,” Hartnett said. “They are trying to supplant the family.”

Vinson & Elkins is not the only firm involved in this case, however, having experienced high profile exposure.  The Dallas-based Hartnett Law Firm was part of the legal contingency representing J. Howard Marshall III in Marshall v. Marshall, the 2000-2001 probate court trial in which Anna Nicole Smith and J. Howard Marshall III joined forces in the first attempt to undermine the estate distribution wishes of J. Howard Marshall II.  In a statement issued after the verdict, E. Pierce Marshall, the rightful Marshall estate heir, said:

“My father left me with the responsibility of filing his will for probate,” Pierce Marshall said. “His decisions concerning his estate were clearly stated in six wills and seven separate property trusts over 13 years prior to his death. The jury agreed with us that there was never any reason for Howard Junior to challenge our father’s estate plan and that he did so with malice.

“While these rulings will not reimburse the full cost of nor make up for the six years this litigation has taken out of our lives, they will serve as a warning to all that they cannot disrupt our lives again with another baseless lawsuit without assuming substantial personal risk,” Pierce Marshall said.

Sadly, Pierce Marshall did not live to see the end of the litigation that continues on today.  Meanwhile, similar sentiments regarding the honoring of wishes have been attributed to Alfred Glassell III:

Alfred Glassell III, listed as executor of his father’s will, testified he wants to see his father’s wishes met, even if it means cutting his sister and her two boys out of getting a penny since his father wanted anyone contesting the will to take nothing.

This is not a point of view that suits wannabe heirs, disgruntled family members or legal industry practitioners speculating on a lucrative settlement, but it’s the honorable position that once actually held weight in our society.  Detractors will claim Glassell to be self-motivated, but what if he’s just right?

From this case, people should take a note and a warning.  The note is simple:  estate planning documents are important, but don’t believe the attorney that tells you they are a safeguard from estate litigation.  From Houston alone, Marshall v. Marshall, the recent Henry J.N. Taub dispute and this case clearly prove otherwise.

The warning from this case is simply to not believe that an absence of millions of dollars makes one immune from these Involuntary Redistribution of Assets (IRA) acts.  Wealth is relative and there is always someone who wants what you have.  Not everyone can afford to fight even the most illegitimate of claims.  That point is not lost on the legal industry and its IRA allies.  Don’t let it be lost on you!

Lou Ann Anderson is an advocate working to create awareness regarding the Texas probate system and its surrounding culture.  She is the Online Producer at www.EstateofDenial.com and a Policy Advisor with Americans for Prosperity – Texas Foundation.  Lou Ann may be contacted at info@EstateofDenial.com.