Hey there, Legal Tea Listeners! This is your host, Jenny Rozelle. We’re back to “estate planning of the rich and famous” where we chat about celebrities and their estate planning (or lack thereof!). Today’s episode is on the great Charles Kuralt – a name most will recognize, but if not, he is most known for his time spent on CBS and even more specifically, a feature he did called “On the Road” where, as it states on his Wikipedia page, Charles “hit the road in a motor home … with a small crew and avoided the interstates in favor of the nation's back roads in search of America's people and their doings.” I love that! So, as we always do on celebrity estate planning episodes, let’s talk about Charles as a person first, then we’ll dive into what happened estate-wise following his death in 1997.
Originally hailing from Wilmington, North Carolina, Charles spent most of his childhood and adolescence in North Carolina. Fun little fact, in high school, in those senior superlative things, he won “Most Likely to Succeed.” Well, he sure didn’t do too bad for himself, did he? Fast forward time, he attended and graduated from University of North Carolina (UNC) – after graduation in 1955, his first “real” job was a reporter for the Charlotte News, a local newspaper in Charlotte, North Carolina. Just a couple years later, in 1957, he started working at CBS as a writer, which, according to his Wikipedia, made him the youngest correspondent in the history of CBS News (he was 25 at the time). In the 1960s, he spent a lot of his time reporting all around – like, he spent time in Latin America while he was based in Brazil; he spent time in LA and New York City; also spent time doing coverage in Vietnam during the war and in Congo during a revolution.
Charles ended up proposing a new project to his higher-ups – and that’s when “On the Road” was born. According to Wikipedia, he convinced CBS to let him try it for three months – well, it turned into as they say “a quarter-century project with [him] logging more than a million miles.” After the successful project concluded, Charles ended up on the CBS Sunday Morning News – that was in 1979. From there, he was kind of all over CBS – truly, a staple for the network. Then, at the age of 60, Charles somewhat unexpectedly retired from CBS News – but hinted a the possibility that it wasn’t truly a retirement. About a year later, Charles was back and he did some narration (on a TLC documentary), some hosting, as well as some broadcasting.
Now, more personally-speaking, he married a lady by the name of Jean in 1954 – when he and Jean were both seniors in college. While their marriage ended in a divorce in 1960, they did have two children, two daughters, that they named Susan and Lisa. A few years after Charles and Jean’s divorce, Charles married a lady by the name of Suzanna in 1962. They did not have any children. Now, according to his Wikipedia page, he “refused to alter his habits in favor of healthier ones; he ate unhealthy food, drank and smoked.” Later, in 1997, he ended up dying of heart failure (but also had complications from lupus) at the age of 62. His then-wife, Suzanne, died just a couple years later in 1999.
After his death, an estate plan, specifically a Last Will and Testament, was located. But something else was located … Charles had a bit of a secret life. When I was researching for this episode, I got to this whole part, I was like, “Wait … WHAT happened?!” So, buckle up, my friends…
According to a blog by Spencer Law Firm in Pennsylvania, by the way the blog is titled “Off the Road with Kuralt’s Estate Plan” which is genius, and it provided a super helpful play-by-play as to what happened. So, here we go! Meet … Patricia Shannon. Patricia formally, but she went by Pat. Pat Shannon and Charles originally met in 1968 while Charles was in Reno, Nevada doing a story about a park called Pat Baker Park. Pat’s affiliation to the park was that she was promoting and volunteering at the park.
From there, Charles and Pat maintained a nearly-30 year relationship or friendship or whatever you want to call it. Many of the sources out there describe Pat’s family as Charles’ “shadow family.” In fact, Charles provided Pat with significant financial support and help – and even held close relationships with Pat’s three children. Some sources out there call Pat a “mistress” and some call Pat’s family as “Charles’ shadow family” … seems like a lot of he-said, she-said, but what I can confirm is there was a very close and private relationship between the two. Pat even, following Charles’ death, wrote a book to, as a newspaper stated, “set the record straight and to ease concerns of her children.” In it, it continued to sort of dance around their relationship, but did say that at dinner post-filming, Charles and Pat discussed Charles’s wife and marriage saying, “…the slow ebbing of that marriage, which over the years became companionable, but never ended.” Interesting choice of words. Who knows – moving on…
Just a few months before Charles died, Charles actually sold (and I’m saying “sold” in air quotes) a twenty acre parcel with a cabin located in Montana to Pat. The thing was .. he sold it to her, but also gave her the money for the supposed purchase price. Then, after that transactions, Charles asked for Pat to send him a real estate contract so that the other 90 acres nearby could go to Pat too. That transaction was supposed to happen in September 1997, but he died in July 1997. Prior to his death, however, he wrote Pat a letter. He wrote the letter on the day he was admitted to the hospital, actually. Now, that letter became incredibly handy for Pat because after Charles died, Charles’ wife, Suzanna, filed Charles’ Will for probate in New York, which his estate, because the 90 acre transaction had not happened yet, did include said 90 acres in Montana.
Now, something to know is that if you have property in multiple states, you typically have to open probate in each state – so Suzanna opened probate in New York, but because of the Montana acreage, she also filed a probate petition in Montana. Now, this is where things took a SHARP left turn for Suzanna, Charles’ late wife. Pat ended up filing something with the Montana Court alleging that the letter Charles wrote her (when he got admitted to the hospital) should be considered to be a Will and that the 90 acre property should go to Pat. What did the letter say, you ask? Let’s read it!
“June 18, 1997 Dear Pat – Something is terribly wrong with me and they can’t figure out what. After cat-scans and a variety of cardiograms, they agree it’s not lung cancer or heart trouble or blood clot. So they’re putting me in the hospital today to concentrate on infectious diseases. I am getting worse, barely able to get out of bed, but still have high hopes for recovery … if only I can get a diagnosis! … I’ll keep you informed. I’ll have the lawyer visit the hospital to be sure you inherit the rest of the place in MT. if it comes to that. I send love to you … I hope things are better there! Love, C."
Would you believe me if I told you that letter, later in the Court battle, was found to be a valid codicil to his Will? Well, believe it, my friends. Oh, a codicil is like an amendment to a Will. So, that was determined to be valid and enforceable. If you’re a nerd like me, I have added the case and opinion of this decision in the source links for this episode. But things did not end there! Don’t go so fast!
The Will that Charles had made (the main Will) stated that all taxes should be paid from the estate, but even more specifically … from the residue of the estate. Now, residue, in my estate world, is not like residue on your windshield … residue means that it’s the money in the estate AFTER payment of specific bequests, which this Montana 90 acre thing WAS considered a specific bequest. So, because of that, another argument broke out – WHO was supposed to pay the taxes from Pat inheriting the property? Pat or Charles’ estate? Well, the Court got involved in that argument, too, and ultimately, the Court held that the estate, which at this point was going to his two daughter, because Suzanna at this point at died, anyway … that the estate had to pay the taxes for the Montana property going to Pat. Whoa, talk about rubbing salt in the would! That Court case’s opinion is also in the source links too.
What a wild sequence of events, huh! I think this “celebrity estate planning” episode may be one of my favorites. You know, after so many episodes, sometimes episodes’ content blurs together – I’m not sure I’ll forget about this one. What a doozy! So, speaking of it being a doozy, let’s talk about the biggest takeaway from Charles’ estate. I mean, there may be some ethical takeaways (like maybe not having this type of relationship when you’re married), but let’s talk about more of a legal takeaway.
The biggest to me is kind of a unique one – and maybe one you’ll find interesting. Did you know that a married couple client is “on paper” a conflict of interest a lot of times for estate attorneys? We typically will have you waive the conflict of interest in an engagement agreement – because most of the time, married couples are aligned with their goals. Though, with Charles, clearly he was trying to do something a bit on the side … so, it would have been immensely helpful for him to seek an estate attorney’s advice and not waive the conflict of interest. Then, that attorney could have helped him navigate how to fulfill his goal of leaving something to Pat, doing so in a way that would minimize or eliminate the fight between Pat and Suzanna, and could have cleared up the tax confusion thing too. Clearly that’s something he likely didn’t think of – and who knows whether he would have wanted Pat to pay the taxes or the estate (that ended up going to his daughters). Him working with an attorney and doing so in a proactive fashion would have likely helped immensely here.
Alrighty, let’s wrap this episode up and shift to a sneak peak at next week. Next week we’re back to a “cautionary tale” episode where we talk about real-life clients, real-life cases that I, or my office, have worked on -or- maybe they are just generally good things to know/be aware of so you don’t slip up and turn into a cautionary tale one day. Next week, I haven’t decided yet what I’m going to blab about – so you’ll just have to tune in to find out I guess, but until then, Legal Tea Listeners…take care and be well!
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