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| Retired attorney Milton Wallace with his pets. In the background is a portrait of his late wife Patricia. |
Mark Wallace subpoenaed the records of his father, Milton Wallace, to use in an as-yet-unfiled case to have his father declared incapacitated. But a probate court agreed with lawyers for Milton Wallace to protect the records.
Mark Wallace appealed, but a Third District panel in June split 2-1 to affirm the lower court order enjoining ex parte communications with a future examining committee to be named if Mark Wallace filed a petition for incapacity.
Todd Legon, Milton Wallace’s longtime law partner at Legon Ponce & Fodiman in Miami, said the decision was “an important victory for seniors in Florida because it prevents their constitutionally protected medical records from being used against them in legal proceedings.”
Legon flatly denied the claim that Milton Wallace has dementia.
Mark Wallace did not return a call for comment by deadline. His attorney, Brian Stack of Stack Fernandez & Harris in Miami, had no comment on the litigation.
At the appeals court, Judge Vance Salter dissented, saying the injunction was premature, unwarranted and amounted to “a prior restraint and ‘medical gag order.’ ”
He maintained Circuit Judge Mindy Glazer, who is hearing the trust case, lacked jurisdiction to issue an injunction affecting Mark Wallace’s contemplated guardianship case.
Judge Eric Hendon, writing for the majority, dismissed that concern in a footnote, saying a protective order allows “the guardianship judge to readdress matters in the order” if that case is filed.
Hendon offered a primer on incapacity provisions and said the Legislature set up “straightforward procedures” for pursuing it. Lawmakers “could have easily incorporated” a front-loaded process for attaching medical records and doctors’ reports to a petition but did not.
“It is not the function of this court to expand the controlling statutes,” Hendon wrote with Judge Thomas Logue concurring.
Social Whirl
Now in his 80s, Milton Wallace was a prominent commercial litigator with Legon Ponce & Fodiman. He became wealthy as an attorney and developer and served as chairman of the Dade Housing Finance Authority.
He and his late wife Patricia were notable donors and fixtures on Miami’s social scene. Patricia Wallace, who died in 2016, was a partner in Central Properties Co., a real estate holding company, and founded and chaired Bankers Savings Bank for 10 years.
The Wallaces owned a 2.6-acre Coral Gables waterfront estate featuring a seven-bedroom, seven-bath mansion in the gated Gables Estates, with stunning frontage on Biscayne Bay and an expansive stretch of unbuildable mangrove on the north side. The Miami-Dade County property appraiser’s office estimates the two-story, 13,604-square-foot home with a pool and tennis court has a market value of $20.3 million. Zillow pushes it closer to $26.5 million.
Milton Wallace in 2015 also bought a two-story tower suite at The Gables condominium, with a panoramic view stretching from Miami Beach to Key Biscayne and Biscayne Bay. The six-bedroom, six-bathroom unit with wide terraces and home theater is listed for sale at $6.5 million.
In their heyday, the Wallaces supported numerous Miami charities.
Patricia Wallace, daughter of a doctor, founded the Golden Angel Society in 1998 to benefit the Jackson Memorial Foundation, and she served on Miami’s public hospital board for 12 years. The Pomeranian lover also served on the boards of the Humane Society of Greater Miami, The Salvation Army and The Wolfsonian/FIU and supported the American Red Cross and Art in Public Places Trust.
Three generations of the Wallace family graduated from the University of Miami, the source of Jackson’s medical students.
Mark Wallace, a UM law graduate, is among them. The CEO of United Against Nuclear Iran took on high-profile assignments for President George W. Bush.
He worked at the United Nations, focusing on management and reform. He also served as general counsel as the Immigration and Naturalization Service transitioned from the Justice Department to the Department of Homeland Security and at the Federal Emergency Management Agency during the 9/11 recovery effort in 2001.
Mark Wallace is a Florida Bar member who lists a Roxbury, Connecticut, address. He separated this year from his wife Nicolle Wallace, an MSNBC host and Bush’s White House communications director.
A Trust Dispute
Disputes like the one between the Wallaces are normally dealt with anonymously in court. Petitions for incapacity are sealed and the hearings closed under state confidentiality law. But the dockets in the trust proceedings and related probate case are open, and the appeals court decision summarized assertions by Mark Wallace.
The Third District said Mark Wallace claimed his father was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia in 2010, and a trust was created the following year to protect the family’s assets.
In 2016, Mark Wallace claimed in the trust lawsuit that someone outside the family induced his father to transfer funds meant for the trust. The claims laid the groundwork to have his father declared mentally incapacitated.
The 565-item trust case docket in Miami-Dade Circuit Court is populated with references to missing original stock certificates and disputed attempts to sell real estate as father and son tangled on motions.
Mark Wallace also is in litigation over his mother’s probate case. He defeated an attempt last year by his aunt to remove him as co-personal representative of his late mother’s estate, but it was quickly followed by an amended petition for removal.
A bench trial on Mark Wallace’s challenge to his aunt’s distribution from his mother’s estate is set for Oct. 21-25 before Glazer, who inherited the case after another judge’s retirement.
Full Article & Source:
Father-Son Attorneys Fight Over Family Trust With Claims of Dementia, Fraud
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