Estate Planning Attorney Owes Duty to Known Beneficiaries.

The decedent hired the defendant to draft an amendment to the decedent's revocable living trust.  The amendment named the decedent's wife and children as beneficiaries.  However, after the decedent's death, two of the children as successor trustees petitioned the probate court to modify the trust amendment on the basis that it didn't carry out the decedent's wishes that the wife not be named as a beneficiary to the decedent's brokerage accounts as well as real and personal property.  The defendant admitted that the amendment did not conform to the decedent's wishes.  The trustees settled the probate court action with the decedent's wife, and sought to amend their complaint to add an allegation that the defendant owed the children a duty.  The trial court did not allow the complaint to be amended because the children lacked privity with the defendant as merely trust beneficiaries.  On appeal, the court reversed.  The court held that the defendant did owe a duty to beneficiaries such as the children at issue in the case that are all named beneficiaries in the trust amendment.  The court reasoned that doing so posed not risk that a random unnamed beneficiary would be making a claim against the defendant.  Paul v. Patton, No. H040646, 2015 Cal. App. LEXIS 304 (Cal. Ct. App. Apr. 9, 2015).