Brattle Team Supports UMB Bank in Trust Management Dispute
In a lengthy trust management dispute, a Brattle team provided economic and statistical analyses on behalf of the UMB Bank N.A., which was accused of mismanaging the trust of American artist Thomas Hart Benton. In late 2024, a Missouri judge ruled that UMB Bank did not breach its fiduciary duties as trustee of Benton’s trust, rejecting arguments from Benton’s heirs that the bank undervalued Benton’s art or did not adequately invest the trust’s assets.
From 1979 until 2021, UMB Bank served as a trustee of the estate of Benton, a painter and printmaker best known for his large murals of 20th-century Midwestern life. In December 2019, the beneficiaries of Benton’s trust – his daughter and her three children – filed a lawsuit against UMB Bank, alleging that it had breached its fiduciary duties. The plaintiffs claimed that UMB Bank failed to maximize the value of Benton’s art by not establishing a print and licensing program for the artwork and improperly investing the trust’s cash, among other allegations. The plaintiffs sought damages in excess of $500 million.
Brattle was retained by Shook, Hardy & Bacon, LLP in 2021 to evaluate the claims made by the plaintiffs and their experts. Led by Principal Steven Herscovici and Senior Associates James Banovetz and Suzanne Steele, the Brattle team assessed the feasibility of establishing a print and licensing program for Benton’s works and found no evidence that such a program could have generated revenues – let alone profits – anywhere near plaintiffs’ projections. The team also assisted counsel in assessing plaintiffs’ analysis regarding the number of copyrights Benton owned at the time of his death in 1975, finding significant flaws in the list of 1,900 copyrights identified by the plaintiffs’ expert.
Brattle also used a data-driven approach to show that the manner in which UMB Bank invested the trust’s liquid assets was not inconsistent with the range of investment mixes observed in the industry over the relevant time period, thus refuting plaintiffs’ allegations that the funds had been improperly invested.
In December 2024, following a five-month trial, Judge Mark A. Styles of the Circuit Court of Jackson County, Missouri, Probate Division, ruled favorably for UMB Bank. He concluded that plaintiffs’ experts failed to present sufficient evidence to support their claims that the trust could have established a successful licensing and merchandising program for Benton artworks or that the trust’s liquid assets had been improperly invested.
