The Florida Supreme Court has declined to take up a dispute about whether Delaware has been shortchanged in the distribution of money from a charitable trust tied to the late industrialist Alfred I. duPont.
The Supreme Court issued three orders last week denying requests by the Florida Attorney General’s Office and two other parties to review a decision by the 5th District Court of Appeal.
The appeals court said Delaware Attorney General Kathleen Jennings can pursue a lawsuit alleging a breach on a 50 percent limit on distribution of money to states other than Delaware.
Delaware was duPont’s native state, but he moved to Jacksonville in the 1920s.
The appeals court opinion last year was part of decades of legal wrangling about a duPont charitable trust and the nonprofit Nemours Foundation, which was created with money from the trust and provides pediatric medical care in Florida and other states.
The appeals court opinion said “Mr. duPont included in his will and in the trust documents specific, clear direction that the children and elderly of Delaware were to receive priority and were to be taken care of before expending trust funds on children or elderly residing elsewhere.”
In addition, a lawsuit filed in the late 1970s led to a settlement that limited how much of the trust money distributed each year to Nemours could be spent outside Delaware. That limit was 50 percent.
Then-Delaware Attorney General Matthew Denn filed a lawsuit in 2017 against the trust and Nemours Foundation, alleging breach of contract and breach of trust duties. Florida intervened in the case on the side of the trust and foundation.
Along with the Florida Attorney General’s Office, the trust and foundation also asked the Supreme Court to review the case.
As is common, the Supreme Court did not explain its decision for declining to take up the case.
