Blethen, Gage & Krause is pleased to announce that the Minnesota Court of Appeals recently reversed a district court decision regarding the use of testamentary powers of appointment in a trust.  In this case, Blethen Gage and Krause represented the parties that the trustees attempted to remove as beneficiaries in the trust.  The issue before the Court of Appeals was whether the document used to remove trustee beneficiaries was a proper use of the testamentary powers of appointment.  The document used was signed by the Trust grantor while he was in the hospital, just four days before he died.  This addition to the trust document effectively would have excluded BGK’s clients from receipt of any monies dispersed through the instrument.  Facts of the case led the Court of Appeals to rule that the document was not a will and therefore was not a proper use of testamentary powers of appointment.  Blethen, Gage & Krause attorney Silas Danielson, the attorney representing the appellants, stated that “the decision gives greater clarity to what is and is not a will”.