Regions Bank v. Lowrey
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Regions Bank, as sole trustee of the J.F.B. Lowrey Trust, appealed a circuit court order that awarded Regions $312,257.36 from the Lowrey Trust as reimbursement for attorney fees and expenses Regions incurred as trustee during the successful defense of an action brought against Regions by Sam G. Lowrey, Jr., and Shelby Jones, two of the beneficiaries of the Trust. The beneficiaries sued Regions, alleging breach of fiduciary duty, claiming Regions failed to protect and preserve the assets of the Lowrey Trust, which consisted primarily of approximately 20,000 acres of timberland located in Monroe and Conecuh Counties and which have been the subject of much intra-family litigation. Hurricane Ivan made landfall and moved over Monroe and Conecuh Counties, causing severe wind damage and destruction of much of the standing timber owned by the Lowrey Trust. In their complaint, the beneficiaries asserted that Regions should have purchased casualty-loss insurance on the timber, should have sold most of the timberland before Hurricane Ivan in order to diversify the investments of the trust estate, should have cut the timber more rapidly, or should have pursued some combination of these tactics in order to preserve the corpus of the Trust. The trial court entered a detailed order in favor of Regions, rejecting the beneficiaries' claims of mismanagement of the trust assets and taxing costs against the beneficiaries. Upon review, the Supreme Court concluded Regions was entitled to reimbursement of fees and expenses and costs arising out of the litigation. The trial court exceeded its discretion by reducing Regions' reimbursement by both a line-by-line reduction and a percentage reduction. The trial court's January 8, 2013 was reversed in its entirety and remanded for consideration of the reasonableness of each aspect of Regions' reimbursement request.
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