SLOSBERG v. GILLER

After David Slosberg died, his son Robert sued his sisters, Suzanne Giller and Lynne Amy Seidner, claiming they had unduly influenced their elderly father into signing a trust that left Robert only $25,000 while giving them nearly everything else. The trust contained an 'in terrorem' or no-contest clause, threatening to disinherit anyone who challenged it. A jury agreed the trust was the product of undue influence and voided it, but the Court of Appeals of Georgia later ruled that Robert's lawsuit itself triggered the no-contest clause, wiping out his win. The Supreme Court of Georgia disagreed. It held that a no-contest clause only works if the trust it lives inside is valid in the first place. Because the jury found the whole trust invalid due to undue influence, the clause inside it was void too, so it could not punish Robert for winning his challenge. The court reversed that part of the Court of Appeals' decision and sent the case back for further proceedings.

An in terrorem (no-contest) clause in a trust only takes effect if the trust itself is validly formed; when a beneficiary successfully proves the entire trust was the product of undue influence, both the trust and its no-contest clause are void, so the clause cannot cause a forfeiture of benefits.

The ruling protects Georgians who suspect a relative manipulated an elderly or vulnerable family member into signing a will or trust, ensuring they can challenge it in court without automatically losing everything if they succeed. It also guides estate lawyers and trial courts statewide on how no-contest clauses actually work.

Reversed in part and remanded with direction

1. Georgia law has long allowed people to challenge whether a trust, will, or contract was validly created in the first place, including claims of undue influence, which means someone else's will was substituted for the person signing the document due to deception, force, or coercion.
2. If a court or jury finds that an entire trust document was procured by undue influence, the whole document, including any no-contest clause inside it, is void and has no legal effect, because a person cannot use such a clause to shield wrongdoing they used to create the document.
3. The relevant Georgia trust statute in effect when the trust was signed, former O.C.G.A. § 53-12-22(b), only required that the trust specify where forfeited property would go if the no-contest clause was violated; it said nothing about a no-contest clause being automatically valid regardless of whether the trust itself was validly formed.
4. The court found that the Court of Appeals wrongly treated the undue-influence challenge as a request for a public-policy exception, relying on a prior case, Duncan v. Rawls, that actually addressed a different question: whether courts should create a good-faith exception to no-contest clauses, not whether a successful undue-influence challenge voids the clause.
5. Because the jury in this case actually found that Robert proved undue influence and the trust was void, the no-contest clause fell along with it, so it could not be used to forfeit the assets the trial court had already awarded him.

• in terrorem clause
• undue influence
• family trust dispute
• no-contest clause
• inheritance forfeiture