North Dakota Code 59-04.2-03.1 – Judicial control of discretionary power
1. The court may not order a fiduciary to change a decision to exercise or not to exercise a discretionary power conferred by this chapter unless the court determines that the decision was not made in good faith or was an abuse of the fiduciary’s discretion. A fiduciary’s decision is not an abuse of discretion merely because the court would have exercised the power in a different manner or would not have exercised the power.
Terms Used In North Dakota Code 59-04.2-03.1
- Beneficiary: A person who is entitled to receive the benefits or proceeds of a will, trust, insurance policy, retirement plan, annuity, or other contract. Source: OCC
- Fiduciary: A trustee, executor, or administrator.
- following: when used by way of reference to a chapter or other part of a statute means the next preceding or next following chapter or other part. See North Dakota Code 1-01-49
- Jurisdiction: (1) The legal authority of a court to hear and decide a case. Concurrent jurisdiction exists when two courts have simultaneous responsibility for the same case. (2) The geographic area over which the court has authority to decide cases.
- Remainder: An interest in property that takes effect in the future at a specified time or after the occurrence of some event, such as the death of a life tenant.
2. The decisions to which subsection 1 applies include:
a. A decision under subsection 1 of section 59-04.2-03 as to whether and to what extent an amount should be transferred from principal to income or from income to principal.
b. A decision regarding the factors that are relevant to the trust and its beneficiaries, the extent to which the factors are relevant, and the weight, if any, to be given to those factors, in deciding whether and to what extent to exercise the discretionary power conferred by subsection 1 of section 59-04.2-03.
3. If the court determines a fiduciary has abused the fiduciary’s discretion, the court may place the income and remainder beneficiaries in the positions they would have occupied if the discretion had not been abused, according to the following rules:
a. To the extent the abuse of discretion has resulted in no distribution to a beneficiary or in a distribution that is too small, the court shall order the fiduciary to distribute from the trust to the beneficiary an amount that the court determines will restore the beneficiary, in whole or in part, to the beneficiary’s appropriate position.
b. To the extent the abuse of discretion has resulted in a distribution to a beneficiary which is too large, the court shall place the beneficiaries, the trust, or both, in whole or in part, in their appropriate positions by ordering the fiduciary to withhold an amount from one or more future distributions to the beneficiary who received the distribution that was too large or ordering that beneficiary to return some or all of the distribution to the trust.
c. To the extent the court is unable, after applying subdivisions a and b to place the beneficiaries, the trust, or both, in the positions they would have occupied if the discretion had not been abused, the court may order the fiduciary to pay an appropriate amount from its own funds to one or more of the beneficiaries or the trust or both.
4. Upon petition by the fiduciary, the court having jurisdiction over a trust or estate shall determine whether a proposed exercise or nonexercise by the fiduciary of a discretionary power conferred by this chapter will result in an abuse of the fiduciary’s discretion. If the petition describes the proposed exercise or nonexercise of the power and contains sufficient information to inform the beneficiaries of the reasons for the proposal, the facts upon which the fiduciary relies, and an explanation of how the income and remainder beneficiaries will be affected by the proposed exercise or nonexercise of the power, then a beneficiary who challenges the proposed exercise or nonexercise has the burden of establishing that it will result in an abuse of discretion.