Representing fiduciaries, beneficiaries or charities, Rummel has experienced many unique situations in her 20-year career litigating probate, conservatorship, estates and trusts.
Her firm's litigation department represented eight local and national charities against a contractor who took advantage of a wealthy, elderly man, Herbert Posnack. The contractor stumbled upon the Posnack's bank statement and, upon learning of his wealth, systemically isolated Posnack from his family, coerced him into naming the contractor and the contractor's family as beneficiaries of his estate. The Posnack Trust Litigation, Los Angeles, Case No. BP093250)
After Posnack passed away and the estate was being settled, the charities named in his original trust, including the Anti-Defamation League and the Muscular Dystrophy Association, hired Rummel to assist in retrieving Posnack's bequests. Rummel had the contractor removed as a trustee and worked with the new trustee to find and distribute the donations in accordance with Posnack's original intent.
In another case, Estate of Yen Wang, Riverside County, Case No. PSP 1100101, a trial ensued over a conflicting will and codicil in Chinese between a second spouse and the family. Rummel said they had to examine a holographic will in cursive Chinese. Her defendant left mainland China as a young man. He never learned simplified Chinese writing. Rummel argued that the man neither signed or wrote the document, which implied nefarious actions of his short-term widow.
"It's a challenge in a good way to help people who are struggling not only with the death of someone who they may have been close to, or they may not be close to, but it's also a rite of passage whether it's a creation of their own estate, shoving along with basic assets and the rite of passage of losing a parent but gaining from financial independence or freedom," she said.
— Matt Sanderson
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