A Missouri appeals court ruled on Tuesday that a corporate trustee did not breach its fiduciary duty by selling works from Thomas Hart Benton’s estate over four decades without appraising them first. The outcome turned on one phrase in the trust document and on who carried the burden of proof.
Decided October 6, 2026. Gude and McCormick, and Guerin, Successor Trustee of the Jessie Benton Dynasty Trust v. UMB Bank, N.A., No. WD87870 (consolidated with WD87871 and WD87890), Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District. Affirmed, with a separate concurring opinion.
Every transaction the beneficiaries challenged predates Missouri’s adoption of the Uniform Trust Code in 2004, so the court applied common law. Trusts administered in Missouri today are governed by Chapter 456 RSMo, which the court called instructive but not controlling here.
On Tuesday the Western District affirmed a Jackson County judgment in favor of UMB Bank, N.A., in a lawsuit brought by descendants of Thomas Hart Benton, the Missouri regionalist painter. The beneficiaries alleged that the bank, as trustee of a testamentary trust that once held more than 3,500 of Benton’s works, sold artwork without proper valuation, sold to parties connected to the bank, lost track of pieces, and failed to protect copyright interests. After a lengthy bench trial, the circuit court awarded $35,000 for five pieces the bank admitted it could not account for and denied every other claim. All five points on appeal were denied.
What makes the opinion worth the attention of Missouri families has little to do with art. It is the method. Nearly every issue was resolved by reading the words of the governing instrument, then asking who had to prove what. Both are settled, or lost, at the drafting table years before anyone files suit.
A trust, two wills, and four decades of administration
Benton died in January 1975 and his wife, Rita, died eleven weeks later. Their complementary wills and codicils established a testamentary trust funded with the assets remaining after specific bequests, naming The City National Bank and Trust Company of Kansas City, now UMB Bank, as executor of both estates and as co-trustee alongside attorney Lyman Field. Field died in 1999, after which the bank served as sole trustee until it resigned in 2021. By 1979 the trust held more than 3,500 works of art along with cash and real estate in Massachusetts and Kansas.
On December 17, 2019, Benton’s daughter Jessie and her three children filed a petition pleading breach of trust, avoidance of self-dealing transactions, and violation of the Prudent Investor Act. KCUR 89.3 reported that the family sought roughly $85 million and that the trial ran five months with 67 witnesses; the concurring opinion refers to 74 days of trial. Judgment was entered on December 13, 2024.
The appraisal question was answered by the trust’s own words
The beneficiaries argued that a corporate trustee is held to an exacting standard when selling trust assets and must independently determine fair market value and secure the highest available price. Their experts testified that the bank should have obtained a contemporaneous appraisal for every piece it sold and did not.
The court never reached a general rule about corporate trustees, because the instrument supplied the answer. Its terms directed that the trustees, “in their sole and absolute discretion,” could retain or sell Benton’s works of art, even where those works produced no income. The trust did not require pre-sale appraisals or the highest possible price. Because a grantor’s intent controls and is drawn primarily from the instrument as a whole, clear trust language stands as written and extrinsic evidence cannot qualify, explain, enlarge or contradict it. The bank had consulted recent auction data and others in the art trade when setting prices, and experts on both sides acknowledged that contemporaneous appraisals were not then customary in the art market. The trial court found that approach fell within the discretion the trust conferred.
A footnote carries more practical weight than the holding. At trial the beneficiaries introduced a memorandum Benton wrote after the trust was created, setting out his own thoughts on how his artwork should be valued and sold. Because the trust language was unambiguous, the memorandum could not qualify, explain, enlarge or contradict it. The artist’s later written wishes had no legal effect on the document that governed his collection.
“A grantor is presumed to know and intend the legal effect of the language he uses in the trust.”
O’Riley v. U.S. Bank, N.A., 412 S.W.3d 400, 406 (Mo. App. W.D. 2013), quoted in the Benton opinion
A conflict of interest, standing alone, was not enough
The first point asked the court to adopt what the beneficiaries called the no-further-inquiry rule, under which a beneficiary who proves a fiduciary entered a conflicted transaction may have it voided without proving that the conflict benefited the trustee or harmed anyone. Four transactions were challenged: the sale of Persephone to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City; the sale of eight paintings to the spouse of a bank director; sales through two New York galleries; and the sale of a drawing titled Studies for Persephone to or through the bank’s president.
The court held that Missouri has adopted the principle in substance, but only for self-dealing, meaning cases in which the fiduciary personally benefited, directly or through a spouse. None of the four transactions involved the bank acquiring trust property or receiving a financial benefit, the trial court found no benefit to the bank and no harm to anyone, and the beneficiaries did not appeal that finding. The court declined to extend voidability to transactions in which a fiduciary is merely affiliated with the buyer or might gain something indirect such as reputation, noting that in 1913 the Missouri Supreme Court refused to void a sale between two corporations with substantially overlapping directors absent fraud. KCUR reported that the museum theory rested in part on a former UMB chairman also sitting on the Nelson-Atkins board; the opinion does not name him and resolves the point on proof, not on the relationship.
How the same facts would be analyzed under current Missouri law
Section 456.8-802.2 RSMo makes a transaction involving trust property voidable by an affected beneficiary when the trustee entered it for the trustee’s own personal account or it is otherwise affected by a conflict between fiduciary and personal interests, subject to five exceptions: authorization by the trust terms, court approval, the deadline in section 456.10-1005, consent, ratification or release under section 456.10-1009, and a contract or claim the trustee acquired beforehand.
Section 456.8-802.3 presumes such a conflict when the trustee transacts with a spouse; a descendant, sibling or parent, or their spouses; an agent or attorney of the trustee; or an enterprise in which the trustee holds an interest that might affect its best judgment. The Western District called the statute instructive precisely because it, too, is narrower than the rule the beneficiaries urged.
Where the burden of proof decided the outcome
Much of trust litigation is allocation of proof rather than disagreement about conduct. On the claim that the bank failed to obtain its co-trustee’s approval before selling artwork, the burden rested on the beneficiaries, and the absence of written documentation did not permit an inference that the trustees had not acted jointly.
The copyright claim is the sharpest illustration. The trial court found that the bank did breach its duty to determine, at the outset of administration, which of Benton’s works retained copyright protection after his death and to preserve those interests. The beneficiaries still recovered nothing, because harm is a separate element. To obtain damages they had to prove that specific works were in fact copyrightable, that protection was in fact lost, and that a monetary loss followed; the mere possibility of copyrightable works was not enough. A proven breach paired with unproven damages produces no recovery.
A fourth point concerned Self-Portrait with Rita, a painting the estate had a potential claim to recover and which the bank, as executor, formally disclaimed. The beneficiaries argued that section 473.293 RSMo, which lets a probate court authorize a personal representative to dispose of valueless or encumbered property, required court approval. The court disagreed: the statute creates a route to court authorization but does not limit a testamentary power the will itself grants. Benton’s will let the executor release any claims or demands of the estate as it deemed advisable, a broad grant of discretion rather than boilerplate.
Presiding Judge Thomas N. Chapman concurred in the result on the first point but on narrower reasoning, writing that the beneficiaries failed to establish any conclusive presumption of a breach of loyalty given the trial court’s findings that the bank received no benefit and the beneficiaries suffered no damages, and that they relied on a rule concerned with setting transactions aside while asking for money damages instead. Judge Janet Sutton concurred in the majority opinion, authored by Judge Karen King Mitchell.
What Missouri families should take from this
If you are creating a trust. “Sole and absolute discretion” is not filler. If you want a professional valuation before a significant asset is sold, written co-trustee consent, or notice to your children before a family asset leaves the trust, the instrument has to say so. A business, a farm or a firearms collection raises the same question. See estate planning and trust administration.
A letter of wishes will not repair unambiguous language. Benton’s own memorandum about valuing and selling his work could not change a trust that was clear on its face. A side letter can guide a trustee who wants guidance; it cannot override the document.
If you serve as trustee or executor. Discretion is defensible when documented. Record the basis for each valuation at the time of sale, keep evidence of co-trustee participation, and meet section 456.8-813 RSMo, which requires notice to qualified beneficiaries within 120 days of accepting a trusteeship and an annual report of trust property, liabilities, receipts, disbursements and the trustee’s compensation. Our page on common executor and trustee mistakes covers the recurring ones.
If you are a beneficiary with concerns. A breach of fiduciary duty claim requires a duty, a breach, causation and harm. Suspicion of a conflict is a starting point, not a case, and documents requested early are worth more than litigation later. See beneficiary representation and contested estates and trusts.
The deadline most beneficiaries do not know about
Section 456.10-1005 RSMo bars a breach-of-trust proceeding brought more than one year after the later of two dates: when the beneficiary was sent a report that adequately disclosed a potential claim, and when the trustee informed the beneficiary of the time allowed for commencing a proceeding on a claim that report disclosed. A report adequately discloses a claim if it gives enough information that the beneficiary knows of it or should have inquired.
Where that rule does not apply, the outside limit is five years after the first of three events: the trustee’s removal, resignation or death; the event terminating the beneficiary’s interest; or the event terminating the trust. The section was amended effective August 28, 2025 by House Bill 754. A routine annual statement can start a one-year clock, which is reason to read it when it arrives.
Helpful resources
The coverage below is drawn from several vantage points and labeled by ownership, so you can weigh each account and reach your own conclusion.
Full opinion and concurrence, Gude v. UMB Bank, N.A., WD87870 · Missouri Judiciary, official state court system. The controlling primary source.
Court-prepared opinion summary, WD87870 · Missouri Judiciary. The summary states on its face that it is unofficial and should not be quoted or cited; the opinion itself governs.
Missouri appellate opinions, searchable by hand-down date · Missouri Judiciary, official.
Section 456.8-802 RSMo, duty of loyalty · Missouri Revisor of Statutes, official codified text.
Section 456.8-813 RSMo, duty to inform and report · Missouri Revisor of Statutes, official.
Section 456.10-1005 RSMo, limitation of action against trustee · Missouri Revisor of Statutes, official.
Section 473.293 RSMo, disposition of valueless or encumbered property · Missouri Revisor of Statutes, official.
KCUR coverage of the 2024 trial court ruling · KCUR 89.3, a public radio station licensed to the University of Missouri-Kansas City and supported by listeners and grants. Used here for trial scale, the amount sought and party statements, not for legal conclusions.
Related on this site: The Inherited House Nobody Appraised · The Conservator Bid at Her Mother’s Estate Auction · Comparing Missouri Estate Planning Tools
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This article is provided for general educational purposes only. It is not legal advice and it is not tax advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship with Haake Law Group PC or Derek R. Haake. Statutes, court rules and case law change, appellate decisions may be subject to further review, and the application of any authority discussed here depends on the specific facts of your situation. Verify any statute or opinion against the current official source and consult a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction before acting.