Family's big-bucks feud now in court
Web Posted: 03/29/2007 11:42 PM CDT
Belton Kleberg Johnson was many things, most of them big. He was a big man from a big ranch and he has a big family fighting over a big fortune.And it's going to be a big trial.
The children of B.K. Johnson, who was known as B, are suing his widow, Laura McAllister Johnson, contending she took advantage of a man 20 years her senior, emotionally needy, incredibly rich and alcoholically enfeebled.
They want a jury to decide B wasn't in his right mind when he rewrote his will to give half his estate in trust to his wife and the other half to charity, leaving them out. The estate has been estimated at $40 million.
Calling Laura Johnson a "self-described canny Scotswoman," lawyers for B's children said they'll demonstrate how Johnson, along with lawyers and estate consultants, influenced B to leave his descendants out of the will before he died in 2001 at the age of 71.
Laura Johnson's lawyers, as well as lawyers for the trust and lawyers for the bank that handled the business, argue in turn that B gave his kids plenty in life, that despite his battles with alcohol he knew what he was doing. And, they add, they'll show his will was but a small piece of B's extensive estate planning that set up his children and grandchildren with millions in direct funds and trusts.
"What this case is about is B.K. Johnson thought his money was his. His daughters thought his money was theirs," said Barry McClenahan, Laura Johnson's lawyer.
The trial in Judge Polly Jackson Spencer's Bexar County Probate Court 1 began this week. It may take three months.
B inherited millions as the great-grandson of King Ranch founder Richard King. Lawyers on both sides presented his life in opening statements as a mix of privilege and struggle.
He grew up riding and working cattle on the King Ranch. His mother taught him to hunt, something he'd love most of the rest of his life. He lost his father when he was still a baby, and his mother died in an alcohol-related car accident when he was about 12.
Johnson was a hard drinker himself. When he was passed over in his hopes to run the ranch after his uncle's death, B sold his interest in it for about $70 million. Later he sued the family over that agreement and won a couple million more.
So it should have been no surprise when his own children sued him over his sale of their family ranch, Chaparrosa, as he fought against bankruptcy in the 1980s, said lawyers for the daughters. They were standing up for what was right just as he did, lawyer Jack W. Lawter Jr. said.
B had his children, two daughters and a son, with his first wife, Patsy. Lawter said growing up with B was an emotional roller coaster and that they could tell when an alcohol binge was coming. They even had a name for the prelude. They called it "getting spun up," he said.
Through it all, "B Johnson was crazy in love with his kids," Lawter said, "and they were crazy in love with him."
"As far as this case is concerned, the surest way to say 'I love you' is to leave your estate to your kids," he said.
The marriage to Patsy ended in divorce in 1987. In 1990, B married Lynne Murray, the same year he entered the Mayo Clinic for alcohol addiction, where he stated he long had been a heavy drinker, often consuming up to a quart of vodka a day, Lawter said.
At the Mayo Clinic, doctors determined he had damaged his brain with alcohol, Lawter said.
Just days after Lynne's death from breast cancer four years later, B was traveling to Australia to see her family and stopped over in Hong Kong, where he went to a pub called Mad Dogs and thought it might transfer well to his property in San Antonio, the Hyatt Regency Hotel on the River Walk.
And it did. The pub still operates today. But in his negotiations with the owner, Laura McAllister, then married, B became intrigued with her and soon began courting her, marrying the animal rights activist in 1996.
Shortly thereafter, B essentially gave up hunting.
"That right there shows you Laura was in control," lawyer Jim Hartnett said, displaying a slide for jurors titled "The Great Hunter is Caged."
Daughters Sarah Johnson Pitt and Cecilia Johnson McMurrey and daughter-in-law Cecilia Johnson Hager, and the eight children among them, filed this lawsuit in 2003.
Pointing to the Mayo Clinic tests, the family's lawyers contend that after 1990, B wasn't competent to make a will.
But lawyers for Johnson, the trust and bank maintain B was sharp enough to serve on boards of major companies for years and was deeply concerned with avoiding a heavy tax burden on his estate, as evidenced by multiple wills and estate plans over the years as his children grew up and had children and his own marital status changed.
And he even took his kids out of his will long before he met Laura, they noted.
A 1991 video will they intend to present to jurors will show B in his own words explaining that he'd left his kids out because he already had provided for them, they said.
"He never disinherited his family. His estate plan was not just his will. His estate plan was what he did throughout his entire life," McClenahan said.
eallen@express-news.net
Juror passes out as King Ranch probate trial opens
Web Posted: 03/29/2007 12:31 AM CDT
Bailiffs are more often called upon to subdue people than to revive them.So when a juror passed out just a few minutes into a lawyer's opening statement Wednesday in the probate fight over B.K. Johnson's multimillion-dollar estate, the bailiff called for backup.
Lawyer Jack Lawter, representing Johnson's children and grandchildren in their lawsuit against his third wife, Laura McAllister Johnson, had just begun detailing a lifetime of heavy alcohol consumption by the man often referred to as B.
The juror gasped briefly and his head slipped back. Several people, including Bexar County Probate Court 1 Judge Polly Jackson Spencer, later remarked they at first thought he'd nodded off rather early in what's expected to be a long trial.
But an uneasy silence filled the courtroom as it became apparent the man was not sleeping.
"Bailiff," Spencer called, and the bailiff threaded through the tables and lawyers to get to the juror while calling a code into his radio. Several other bailiffs quickly arrived, and an ambulance was called.
The man revived without help after a few seconds and sat up, sweating and looking dazed. Another juror leaned forward, her hand on his shoulder, and asked him if he might have had a seizure, and whether he had a medical condition.
He shook his head and sat quietly until emergency medical personnel took him out on a stretcher. He later was reported to be in good condition. If he doesn't continue jury duty, there still would be 14 jurors, as three alternates were chosen for the trial.
Bailiffs are trained in CPR and emergency first aid, sheriff's Deputy Sgt. Larry Quintanilla said, and get a refresher course each year.
However, he said: "We cover ourselves by having EMS take over."
The delay was not the first in this prolonged struggle. B.K. Johnson, an heir to the King Ranch, died of cancer at 71 in 2001. He left his $40 million estate in trust to Laura Johnson, while bequeathing to his daughters and his son's widow his collection of vintage firearms, valued at about $75,000.
The children and their grandchildren filed the lawsuit in 2003. In recent months they reached a settlement, but that fell through and they ended up back in Probate Court 1, where lawyers once again will begin opening statements today.
eallen@express-news.net
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