How to revoke a Florida revocable trust? You know, everybody in Florida has a revocable trust, also called living trust. And sometimes you'll see amendments to those trusts or restatements. Are they valid and under what circumstances? And when did that amendment or restatement of the Florida trust take place? Well, there's a statute right on point that tells us all about how to amend a revocable trust in Florida. It's 736.0602 you can read it online for free. But remember, there's a catch. The effective date of the Florida trust code is July 1st of 2007. Be careful about trust amendments and trust restatements prior to 2007 July 1st. You need to know what law to apply if you're discussing the amendment of a revocable trust.

Florida powers of attorney and financial exploitation of an elderly person in Florida. Did you know that there's a statute on-point that helps an elderly person and their family from financial exploitation, from powers of attorney, trustees, and guardians? Know what your financial rights are!

This specific statute talks all about powers of attorney. If you're involved in a case where a power of attorney has been abused in Florida and somebody has taken money or misappropriated funds or bank accounts, know what your financial rights are and talk to an experienced litigation lawyer who handles financial crimes against elderly persons. You can also read a very specific statute 825.103.

Financial exploitation of an elderly person in Florida. Why trustees and guardians need to be aware? And why family members need to be aware about a civil remedy.

That's right. If you're a family member and your elderly mom or dad has been financially abused or exploited by somebody, there's a civil cause of action that you can have against the wrongdoer. And that can include trustees and guardians.

Read 825.103. It's a Florida law directly on-point, trying to protect our elderly persons in Florida from financial exploitation. And it specifically talks about breach of fiduciary duty. So if you're involved in a trust with a trustee or a guardian with an elderly person, know your financial rights.

Calculating damages in your Florida lawsuit. Are you involved in a trust or estate lawsuit? You need to prove damages at your trial. Whether it's a jury trial or a bench trial, you're in probate court or you're not in probate court, you need to know how to calculate damages. That's the last element of a cause of action. If you're successful, you've got to prove it. Sometimes you can do it through documents or testimony. Sometimes you bring in an expert to help you with damages.

To read more about how to calculate damages in your Florida estate or trust lawsuit, you could read a Fourth District Court of Appeal case from 2018, 237 So. 3d 419, DFG Group versus Heritage Manor. It's not a trust case but it does stand for the proposition of understanding how damages are reviewed on appeal, as well as the goal of damages.

And the Fourth District tells us that the goal of damages, at least in a tort action -- and remember, breach of fiduciary duty lawsuit in Florida is a tort action, is to restore the injured party to the position it would have been in, had the wrong not been committed.

That's an important element that you need to talk to your probate litigation lawyer about, how you're going to prove damages at your estate trial or your trust trial, and then how you're going to get that evidence into the record. And then knowing also in addition how to calculate damages, knowing how to calculate interest on those damages.

Civil theft lawsuits and the calculation of damages. In 2019, a Palm Beach County judge was upheld on appeal before Florida's Fourth District Court of Appeal in how he calculated interest on a civil theft statute. We got treble damages. This is the law in Florida. When you're calculating interest that you get on civil theft, if you prevail at trial and you get treble damages, do you know how to calculate interest?

There's an older case that also tells us how to calculate interest on your damages when you win a civil theft lawsuit in Florida. It's the Sebastiano case, it's from 2008. It's Florida's Fourth District Court of Appeal 984 So. 2d 673.

Remember, calculating interest on your Florida trust lawsuit or estate lawsuit or a civil theft lawsuit is an important element. Just like you need to calculate attorney's fees properly, know how to plead and get attorney's fees, know how to prove your damages at your jury trial and know how to calculate interest.

In Florida, we have a civil theft statute that gets you treble damages or three times the amount of damages, plus you get interest. A recent case tells you how to calculate that interest. You calculate the interest on the damage, not the treble damages.

You can read more about civil theft in Florida lawsuits by reading AVP Destiny LLC v. FT Destiny LLC. It was issued April 10th, 2019 by the Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeal. The trial judge was upheld on appeal from Palm Beach County. This deals with civil theft.

Why does civil theft matter? If you’re involved in an estate or trust lawsuit and you’re dealing with trustees who are breaching their duties very badly, or defalcations - what our Appellate Courts call when trustees are taking trust property improperly - you might want to seek civil theft if it rises to that level.

But to learn more about civil theft or whether punitive damages is or are proper, you can’t get both, talk to your trust litigation lawyer and work out a trial strategy for your trust lawsuit.

Do you know how to handle one of those Florida probate appellate matters if it comes your way? There is a very recent case that talks all about it. A petition for a Writ of Certiorari or a petition for a Writ of Cert in Florida courts; that’s when you leave the trial court and go to the appellate court to try to get relief.

There are three requirements; you have to establish a departure from the essential requirements of the law, there was a legal error; two, it resulted in material injury and you’ll have that material injury for the remainder of trial; and you can’t rectify that or correct it on a post-judgment appeal. In other words, “Appellate Court, I need help, now! What’s going on at the trial level is improper, there is an error of law and it can’t be fixed at a later time.” Florida Peninsula Insurance Company v. Deporter, April 10th, 2019 handed down by Florida’s

Fourth District Court of Appeal. It’s not a probate case, but for you people who are involved in a state lawsuit, will contests, trust lawsuits in Florida, if you’re at the trial level and you need help from the Appellate Court during the trial and you can’t wait for post-judgment, you can’t wait until after your jury trial, you want to read this case.

If you’re involved in a Florida lawsuit, particularly a trust lawsuit, an estate or a guardianship lawsuit or probate proceeding, attorneys fees are very very important; they’re what we call the “X factor” here. Why? Because you need very specific findings in a probate court to get attorneys fees and also the other side of that legal coin, if somebody is seeking attorneys fees from a trust, an estate or a guardianship, they have to prove their case in front of a judge and the judge has to make very specific findings of fact. So, it’s almost a little subspecialty of the law.

To learn more about what’s required in an order to get attorney fees in a legal matter, you can read the Scire v. Hochman case. It’s an April 10th, 2019 case from Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeal. It’s not a probate case, but it does talk about what does the judge have to put in an order on attorney fees when you’re involved in Florida litigation.

Can you use unclean hands if you’re being sued in a Florida trust or estate lawsuit? You know, Florida probate litigation lawsuits involving estates and trusts permit you to file defenses. And many times, people are sued over an estate, a probate or a trust improperly.

Now, what you should be doing and talking to your trust litigation lawyer about, is raising defenses, affirmative defenses. And a very recent case talks about the defense of unclean hands and when you can raise that. It’s an equitable defense that permits you to raise the defense that somebody who is suing you can’t come to court and get relief if they have caused the problem.

You can read more about it in the Corrigan case, Corrigan v. Vargas, it’s a Fifth District Court of Appeal case from April 5 th 2019. It’s not a probate case, but this Appellate Court opinion does talk about Unclean Hands in a Florida lawsuit.

If you’re involved in a Florida trust lawsuit and you have a disagreement about what the Florida trust says, here’s something that you can do: file a motion for summary judgment, or a motion for judgment on the pleadings, give the trust document to the judge and tell her to tell you and everybody else in your Florida trust lawsuit what it says.

How can you do that? Well, first of all, what you have to know is the interpretation of a trust document, or most writings in Florida, is a pure question of law. What does that mean? It means generally you don’t need evidence. You can give it to a judge and she’s going to tell you what it says.

The next thing you want to understand is when you read the document or the trust, look for the settler’s intent, which is generally done by simply reading the document. If it’s unambiguous, the court reads the document and tells the beneficiaries and trustee what it says.

Remember, just because two beneficiaries or a beneficiary and a trustee have a fight or an inheritance dispute about what the trust says, doesn’t mean it’s ambiguous. You might be able to file a motion for summary judgment or another motion and have the court simply rule on what the trust document says, saving you time and money.

Now, you can read more about this by going to the Horgan case 249 So. 3d 683. It’s a 2018 case from Florida’s Second District Court of Appeal. You can read it online for free by going to that District Court of Appeal’s website, clicking on Opinions and scrolling down to the date.