As a NY Estate lawyer one of the lesser known proceedings is the turnover proceeding. A turnover proceeding is the vehicle afforded to NY estate lawyers to identify and recover NY estate assets that are being wrongfully withheld.
Pursuant to SCPA 2103, under the NY estate law, a NY estate lawyer may identify and marshal NY estate assets and effectuate their return if being wrongfully withheld. In such cases a NY estate lawyer will have broad latitude in deposing witnesses and obtaining documentary evidence to determine whether recovery of estate assets should be pursued. Once property is located and determined to be property actually belonging to the NY estate being improperly withheld with full development of the facts a hearing will be held to determine why said property should not be retrieved.
Estate of Eliot Ness
Anyone whose seen the movie the “Untouchables” is familiar with the story of Kevin Costner’s character, Eliot Ness. Ness rose to notoriety in 1931 as the United States Treasury Officer who formed a commission and successfully took down the most infamous criminal in American history, Al Capone. At the time Capone’s syndicate, Murder Inc., was making billions of dollars illegally bootlegging and distributing alcohol during Prohibition.
Ness and his team of agents called “Untouchables” were not only able to disrupt Capone’s illicit distribution activities but were more notably able to indict America’s public enemy number one, Al Capone on 5,000 violations of the Volstead Act, tax evasion. Due to Ness’s efforts in 1931 Capone was sentenced to eleven years in prison where he would eventually die ending the chapter of widespread bootlegging in American History.
Unfortunately for Ness, with Capone in jail, Ness’s career languished into obscurity and anonymity. In 1944 Ness left the Federal Government to become chairman of the Diebold security corporation. Diebold at the time was the leading manufacturer of safes and vaults while today the publicly traded company valued at $1.5 billion dollars is the leading manufacturer of “ATM” automated teller machines.
Eliot Ness passed away in 1957 from a heart attack. His heirs believed their father to have had a rather modest estate. However unbeknownst to the Estate of Eliot Ness, Ness had been issued 50 shares of Diebold stock in 1948 during his tenure with the company. The shares were later found in the safety deposit box of Ness’s secretary after her passing more than sixty years later. Fast forward 70 years and the 50 shares of Diebold stock issued to Eliot Ness in 1948 are now 29,500 shares accounting for stock splits and dividends worth more than $1.5 million dollars today.
Unfortunately when the Estate of Eliot Ness sought to retrieve the value of the shares from Diebold, the corporation who had initially issued the shares to Ness, the company claimed they had no record of the securities. As such Diebold refused to pay out or liquidate the value of the stock certificate to Ness’s Estate. Estate lawyers for Eliot Ness’s Estate were forced to pursue a turnover proceeding to compel the Diebold Corporation to turnover the proceeds of the stock and collect the fair market value of same. To avoid litigation of this matter and an embarrassing trial, Diebold quickly settled the turnover proceeding in Eliot Ness’s Estate awarding the family an undisclosed sum.
As an experienced NY estate lawyer I can tell you estate issues can get very complicated very quickly. If you or a family member has a NY estate question it never hurts to ask the opinion of an experienced NY estate lawyer to see what your remedies are. Feel free to call the NY estate lawyers at The Law Offices of Jason W. Stern & Associates for a free consultation at (718) 261-2444. Our NY estate lawyers have more than 70 years of combined NY estate law experience drafting and probating the wills for families like yours in the counties of Queens, New York, Kings, Bronx, Westchester, Rockland, Nassau, Orange, Dutchess and Richmond.