Ripped Off Scions Can Go After Lawyer's Bosses

Heirs of the Alta Dena Dairy fortune can pursue claims that their lawyer milked them with his firm's support, a California appeals court ruled.

Berger Kahn began representing the Stueves in 2006 when their lifelong family friend Jay Allen joined the firm.

The Stueves claim that attorney Raymond Novell teamed up with Allen to empty the $50 million estate under the guise of limiting the family's tax liability.

Their 121-page original complaint claimed the Berger Kahn knew everything Allen and Novell were doing with their estate, and kept the family in the dark about misconduct allegations and information about three lawsuits against Allen.

Allen left Berger Kahn for Buchalter Nemer, a co-defendant in the suit, in 2007.

The Stueves allegedly discovered the Novell and Allen scheme in 2009 when one of the patriarchs died and his wife asked about the life insurance proceeds. Novell told her there was no money.

After a court removed Novell as trustee of the Stueve family's trusts in 2010, an examination of the estate revealed that Novell and Allen caused at least $25 million in losses.

In their 2010 complaint, the Stueves and their various trusts and entities claimed that Berger Kahn looked the other way and collected fees while Novell and Allen schemed, "using the family's estate as their own personal piggy bank or petty cash drawer - engaging in self dealing, lending to themselves, their own family members, sham corporations and girlfriends millions of dollars while making egregious fees and taking undisclosed and unauthorized commissions."

 The Stueves accused Novell and Allen in a 331-page second amended complaint of using the family money to operate a Ponzi scheme, based on money laundering and sham loans. Novell and Allen allegedly loaned the family's money to various entities and repaid - if at all - using more of the Stueve money.

Orange County Superior Court Judge Nancy Wieben Stock tossed the suit as untimely, however, after agreeing with Berger Kahn that, taken together, the family's entire action relied on the impossible notion that Allen had misled Novell.

A three-judge panel with California's Fourth Appellate District concluded otherwise.

Full Article and Source:
Ripped Off Scions Can Go After Lawyer's Bosses

See Also:
Read the original complaint
Read the California Fourth Appellate District's Opinion