The petitioners in six cases before the Alabama Supreme Court were brothers Michael Todd Scoggins and Matthew Tyler-Crimson Scoggins. The brothers sought to set aside orders in some of the cases, to intervene in some of the cases, and to order the Circuit Court to permit the interpleader of funds by a third party in one case. The proceeds of a wrongful death settlement were to be used to purchase four annuities for the brothers; their father died in an industrial accident when they were children. The annuities provided for periodic payments and lump-sum payments on various dates. In 2010, the brothers' paternal grandfather Thomas Scoggins (through an attorney) petitioned to have Thomas named conservator for the brothers in order to "reopen" the wrongful-death action for the purpose of obtaining a ruling that a sale of the structured settlement-payment rights was in the best interests of the brother. Court documents would later reveal that the brothers' grandfather did not have authority to sell the payment rights, and that the attorney their grandfather hired to help with the payment rights paid himself from the brothers' trusts with "nearly every single disbursement .... made to himself with virtually no money being paid to the beneficiaries, Michael and Matthew." The brothers sued multiple parties relating to the sale of the payment rights and the mismanagement of their trusts. They moved the circuit court to set aside orders that empowered Thomas to sell certain structured-settlement-payment rights. The motion was denied without a rationale for the ruling. The Alabama Supreme Court granted the petition for the writ of mandamus in case number 1200107, which pertained to the circuit court's denial of the brothers' motion to set aside the circuit court's August 11, 2011, and November 21, 2011, orders in the wrongful-death action; the Court denied the petitions for the writ of mandamus in case numbers 1200103, 1200104, 1200105, and 1200106, which pertained to the circuit court's October 7, 2020, order denying Michael's motion to intervene in the Stratcap actions; and the Court granted the petition for the writ of mandamus in case number 1200102, which pertained to the circuit court's October 1, 2020, order denying American General's motion for interpleader relief in the 2019 action. View "Ex parte Michael Todd & Matthew Tyler-Crimson Scoggins." on Justia Law
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