In re Estate of Fogleman

In In re Estate of Fogleman, 197 Ariz. 252, 257,10-11, 3 P.3d 1172, 1177 (App. 2000), the Court reasoned that allowing a beneficiary to be considered a client would be untenable because "the personal representative would not be able to give undivided loyalty to some beneficiaries while at the same time being truly impartial and fair to others." Id. at12. Relying on Fogleman, the Court also held that an attorney's representation of a trustee did not pose a conflict of interest with the trust's beneficiary because the "beneficiary was not a client of the trust attorneys." In re CVR 1997 Irrevocable Trust, 202 Ariz. 174, 177,17, 42 P.3d 605, 608 (App. 2002). In CVR 1997 Irrevocable Trust, the Court similarly reasoned that "the attorneys' duties to the beneficiary were derivative of their duty to their client, Trustee, and the attorneys did not owe Beneficiary a duty of undivided loyalty; they simply owed him a duty of fairness and impartiality." Id. at19.