(CN) - A Florida judge refused to let Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden tango in an old case there concerning the reorganization of a $4.6 billion trust that funds the Nemours Foundation.
The Florida-based Alfred I. duPont Trust has funded the foundation - which provides services for disabled children in Delaware - for more than 70 years.
Back in 2004, a court restricted use of the foundation's services to children 18 years or younger, expanded the trust to include preventative-care services, and required trustees to distribute 3 percent of the fair-market value of the trust every year.
Biden moved to intervene and set aside the judgment in 2012, but the Duval County Circuit Court shot him down after finding that such intervention would injure the original parties to the action and not serve the interests of justice.
A divided three-judge panel for the 1st District Florida Court of Appeal affirmed Tuesday, finding that Biden failed to prove his intervention would not harm the original litigants.
"First, the preventative program that was put into place as a result of the 2004 judgment would no longer be authorized under the terms of the unmodified trust," Judge Lori Rowe wrote for the majority. "Second, vacating the 2004 judgment would radically alter the provision of care to trust beneficiaries because the preventative programs would cease to exist. Third, vacating the 2004 judgment would result in the invalidation of over $111 million in benefits distributed to Delaware residents."
Rowe also found Biden did not show how justice would be served in allowing him to intervene eight years after the judgment was filed.
Biden has a lawsuit pending on the matter in Florida to have the trust provide services to children and the elderly. "It would be more appropriate for the Delaware Attorney General to seek modification of the trust in that proceeding rather than attempting to invalidate a judgment that has been final for eight years," Rowe said.
Judge Ronald Swanson wrote in dissent that Biden was denied due process because "the Delaware Attorney General was a party to the 1980 court-approved settlement agreement regarding the proper interpretation of the testamentary trust created by Alfred I. duPont, which established and funds a charitable corporation known as 'The Nemours Foundation.'"
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