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Court Skeptical of Lawyer's Marriage to Elderly Client
The Recorder
October 30, 2009
A California appellate court on Wednesday referred a Pacifica, Calif., lawyer to the State Bar for investigation, disturbed that she might have manipulated a now-deceased elderly client into marrying her and changing his trust documents for her benefit.
"We find the circumstances of this case to be troubling," Justice Robert Dondero wrote in an unpublished ruling for San Francisco's 1st District Court of Appeal. "In particular, an inference may be drawn that appellant, a licensed attorney, knowingly made a false representation on a recorded instrument in an attempt to take advantage of a client in order to secure a portion of his estate for herself."
But Linda Lowney's lawyer, Brian Beckwith of Palo Alto, Calif., called the appeals court's action "really inappropriate," saying his client's a "very truthful person" whose marriage to octogenarian Thor Tollefsen was based on love, not mercenary motives.
Beckwith accused Tollefsen's nieces of trying to "assassinate" Lowney's character. Lowney, who was admitted to practice law in California in 1978, didn't return a call seeking comment.
At issue in Estate of Tollefsen (pdf), A123071 , was whether Lowney's "confidential marriage" to Tollefsen on Jan. 28, 2007, was valid. On summary judgment, a San Mateo County Superior Court judge ruled last year it wasn't.
The 1st District affirmed, ruling that "the Legislature has explicitly stated that premarital cohabitation is a necessary condition before a couple may validly apply for a confidential marriage license."
According to the ruling, Lowney claimed to have lived with Tollefsen in Daly City, Calif., but didn't dispute the nieces' contentions that she hadn't.
In court papers, Beckwith said the couple first met in 2001 when Tollefsen came to Lowney to help with an eviction. After that, he said, she drafted some estate planning documents for him and they became romantically involved in March of 2005.
When they married, Beckwith wrote, Lowney wanted the marriage kept confidential because she thought her college-age daughter would object.
Tollefsen's relatives, however, contend that Lowney swept into Tollefsen's life, married him illegally and then induced him to give her access to an account valued at about $350,000.
In his court papers, Beckwith said the attempt to paint Lowney as a "predator" was "improper and misleading."
"There is no dispute," he added, "that both parties entered into the marriage voluntarily."
Beckwith said Wednesday that Lowney's opponents in the estate dispute filed a complaint with the State Bar in 2007. But he didn't know what, if anything, happened to it.
Interim State Bar Chief Trial Counsel Russell Weiner was out of the office Wednesday, and Supervising Trial Counsel Donald Steedman didn't return a call seeking to find out whether the State Bar had initiated an earlier investigation.
State Bar policy, however, requires investigations suggested by judges or justices.
