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Brando Executors Free at Last from Lawsuits? |
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A former gas station operator may have come to the end of the road in his 30-year quest for a share of the Howard Hughes estate as a Utah judge threw out his fraud suit against a cousin of the reclusive billionaire.
U.S. District Judge Bruce S. Jenkins said Melvin Dummar's claims were "fully and fairly litigated" at a probate trial in 1978, when a Nevada jury found that a Hughes will naming him as a beneficiary was bogus.
Dummar, 61, tried to revive the case last year by suing Hughes cousin William Lummis, who became the sole beneficiary after Hughes was declared intestate.
"[T]he court determines that through this action, Dummar is attempting to circumvent the Nevada court's final judgment and to, either directly or indirectly, relitigate his entitlement to a portion of Hughes' estate," Jenkins said in an opinion granting Lummis' motion to dismiss.
Hughes supposedly left Dummar $152 million in the so-called holographic will a few months after Dummar found him lying face down on a central Nevada desert road in late December 1967, woke him up and then drove him 160 miles to Las Vegas.
In his new suit, Dummar alleged that Lummis and co-defendant Frank Gay, a Hughes aide, pressured witnesses to testify falsely at the Nevada trial that "Hughes never left his penthouse suite at The Desert Inn [in Las Vegas] during the time period between Christmas and New Year's Eve of 1967."
But Jenkins said that regardless of the alleged misconduct, he could not rule in favor of Dummar without determining whether the holographic will is valid. And that issue was "fully and fairly" litigated in the Nevada trial.
"Dummar testified before the jury regarding his encounter with the man who identified himself as Hughes and produced evidence and witnesses, including a handwriting expert, during the trial," Jenkins noted.
Much of Dummar's new case relied on Hughes' pilot, who came forward in 2004 with evidence that appeared to corroborate Hughes was in central Nevada visiting a brothel at the time he supposedly met Dummar. Jenkins did not mention that evidence in his ruling.
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Dummar Case Court Documents
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By Matthew Heller
1/8/07
With the $243,750 settlement of a fraud suit, the executors of Marlon Brando must be hoping they have finally put questions about the management of his estate and the authenticity of his will behind them.
Former Brando caregiver Angela Borlaza agreed to the mediated settlement last month, joining four other plaintiffs (see ), some of them longtime Brando associates, who have settled claims against the executors in Los Angeles Superior Court since the Hollywood legend died in July 2004.
Borlaza's was the most explosive case, alleging, among other things, that Brando was “incapacitated” and “incapable of signing anything” on the day he changed his will and gave control of his $22 million estate to the three executors.
The original will appointed Brando retainers JoAn Corrales and Alice Marchak to administer his estate; a codicil signed less than two weeks before his death in July 2004 removed them as executors, replacing them with former studio chief Mike Medavoy, accountant Larry Dressler, and Avra Douglas (a friend of Brando's daughter Rebecca).
Borlaza was seeking $2 million in damages from the executors and the $627,000 market value of a San Fernando Valley house which she said Brando had bought for her. She also alleged in a complaint filed in June that having been trained by Brando to recognize his signature, she “is informed and believes” that he did not sign the codicil.
But the settlement brings the case to a speedy end -- before the merits of its allegations were litigated and with a motion to dismiss pending. Dressler argued in the motion that Borlaza waited too long to file the suit after her creditor's claim against the estate in probate court was denied.
Since Brando's death, the executors have sold off many of his assets. Most controversially, they made a $2-million deal with a Tahiti-based businessman who plans to develop Brando's beloved South Pacific island, Tetiaroa, as an “eco-resort.”
The lawsuits of Corrales, Marchak, architect Bernard Judge and Cristina Ruiz (the mother of three of Brando's children) were all confidentially settled in 2006. To date, there has been no official investigation into the authenticity of Brando's final will.
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Other Borlaza Case Sources
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