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The Kate Marmion Charitable Foundation, an entity created to support people and programs in Uvalde and South Texas, has become ensnared in a lawsuit involving the family of the late former Gov. Dolph Briscoe Jr.
Janey Briscoe Marmion, the oldest child of Briscoe and his wife, Janey, established the foundation with her father to honor her only child, Kate, who died in 2008 at the age of 20.
Marmion’s original will filed in 2011 directed her assets to be placed in a revocable trust. The foundation was to have received income from half of her wealth for 22 years, with the remainder going to the children of her brother Chip Briscoe of Asherton and those of her sister Cele Carpenter of Dallas.
A second will executed by Marmion in 2014 and admitted to probate in Uvalde County Court on Dec. 7, 2018, a month and a day after her death, provides for three trusts, including two child’s trusts created by her father and a GST trust.
The Janey Marmion Briscoe GST Trust, dated Nov. 1, 2012, in which Marmion allotted one-third of her assets to the foundation, with the other two-thirds to be divided equally between Chip Briscoe’s sons Dolph Briscoe IV and James Leigh Briscoe.
Carpenter’s three children, daughter Bonner Acker and sons Austin Carpenter and Benjamin Carpenter II, filed suit in Dallas and in Uvalde County last December challenging the validity of the 2014 will and contesting the probate.
In a petition filed on Feb. 25, their suit contends that Marmion intended to include the three as beneficiaries in addition to Chip’s two sons, and alleging the circumstances create a disproportionate inheritance in favor of the Briscoe men.
The amount being disputed is more than $500 million. The former governor’s estate was estimated by Forbes to be worth as much as $1.3 billion six years ago. Briscoe died at his Pecan Street home in Uvalde in 2010 at the age of 87.
In a Feb. 15 letter to the office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Carpenters state they have no intention of taking any funding from the Kate Marmion Charitable Foundation, but rather seek to balance estate planning per family tradition, and ask to be granted one seat on the foundation board. They also note that a mediation process was attempted, but it was unsuccessful.
The Kate Marmion Charitable Foundation filed an answer to the suit on Feb. 22 requesting that the court declare the Jan. 28, 2014, will valid, and demanding proof of any allegations stating it was not. In addition to the answer, the foundation included a counterclaim stating Marmion’s 2014 will was not ambiguous and asking for a declaratory judgement.
The document states that a boilerplate provision was unintentionally left at the end of the 2014 document, which appears to conflict on a point of language with an earlier section of the will, and asks that the court determine that section to be superfluous and discarded as a scrivener’s error. It states that the 2011 will contained the same mistake.
The foundation is seeking attorney’s fees and costs associated with the suit as damages.
The filing by the foundation was amended on Feb. 25 and refiled, stating the 2014 will properly exercises Marmion’s powers of appointment.
Probate judge Sandee Bryan Marion, former head of the Fourth Court of Appeals, has been appointed to adjudicate estate litigation challenging the probate of Marmion’s 2014 will. Uvalde County Judge Bill Mitchell signed an order dated Feb. 12, granting a motion by Chip Briscoe to assign the case to a statuary probate judge.
In Marmion’s 2014 will, her brother is the executor and his two sons are beneficiaries, as is the Kate Marmion Charitable Foundation. All three men also serve on the board of the foundation, per 2019 tax filings. The Carpenters, who are members of a prominent Dallas real estate development family, are also seeking in their suit to be involved in the administration of the foundation.
The tax documents for the foundation, prepared by Coleman Horton and Company LLP of Uvalde, list 2019 disbursements totaling $277,900 to mostly non-profit organizations.
Those funded include $100,000 to Uvalde Memorial Hospital; $60,000 to Girl Scouts of Southwest Texas; $17,900 to the Uvalde County Junior Livestock Association to be used for scholarships; and $20,000 each to El Progreso Memorial Library, Baylor University in Waco, Uvalde Healthcare Foundation, St. Henry De Osso Family Project, and the Alto Frio Baptist Camp in Leakey.
An additional lawsuit filed in Dallas by the Carpenters alleges malpractice on the part of a San Antonio law firm, which allegedly helped prepare the 2014 will in question. The suit seeks more than $1 million in damages.
