The actress, the 80-year-old and the $800 million estate
By Jenna Greene, From The Litigation Daily
A classic trusts and estates battle is brewing in Nevada state court, with a lineup straight out of central casting: the rich old man, the much younger second wife—a beautiful actress who was not technically divorced from her first husband—and the outraged children who found themselves cut out of the will.
It’s one of those stories that’s like a car crash. You can’t help but gawk.
Gerald Kessler, who founded supplement company Natural Organics Inc., died in March at age 80. Food and drug lawyers might recognize his name as one of the chief architects of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994. He also founded industry lobby group the Nutritional Health Alliance, which mounted high-profile First Amendment challenges to U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulations on supplement labeling.
“Gerald Kessler was a lion of industry and a master of the universe, in charge of every detail of his business and personal life,” wrote Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton partner Adam Streisand in an email.
Head of the firm’s private-wealth litigation team, Streisand represented Kessler for years. He’s now counsel to Meadow Williams (real name Melanie Kay Williams), whom Kessler ostensibly married in Las Vegas in 2010.
According to Streisand, Kessler knew at the time “that there was no divorce decree of record from her first marriage. He didn’t care. … Mr. Kessler wanted the bulk of his estate to go to the most important person in his life, Meadow Williams. Whatever the validity of the marriage, it has nothing to do with the validity of Mr. Kessler’s estate plan. “
Williams, who had small parts in films including Apollo 13, The Mask and Beverly Hills Cop 3, inherited almost all of Kessler’s estate, which his children and grandchildren estimate to be worth about $800 million. And they’re pissed.
Now, the stage is set for an epic battle in the Ninth Judicial Court in Nevada over allegations that Williams manipulated and controlled Kessler, using undue influence to get him to change his will in 2013.
When Kessler met Williams in 2002, he was 68 and she was 37. His family members in their complaint said he was by then “an elderly and vulnerable adult” who hated to be alone. Represented by David J. Callahan III, managing partner of the CBC Law Group in Nashville, Kessler’s two children and six grandchildren also said he “maintained a very close and loving relationship with his family.”
Williams changed that, they said.
According to the complaint, after meeting Williams, Kessler “slowly stopped visiting with most friends, family, and employees. Eventually, Gerald Kessler became completely isolated from those people who loved him most.”
In 2010, Kessler divorced his first wife, Betty, to marry Williams. According to the plaintiffs, the “marriage application recites that Meadow was divorced on March 14, 1994 in Los Angeles. However, court records reveal that Meadow, who was previously known as Melanie Spadafino, only filed for divorce on February 15, 1994. … As of today’s date, their divorce still remains open and ‘pending’ in Los Angeles County.”
Also around 2010, Kessler was diagnosed with hepatic encephalopathy, which can cause confusion and permanent changes in personality, behavior and mood.
Kessler’s family said Williams then moved Kessler from what had been his primary home, the Circle K Ranch in California (formerly owned by McDonald’s Corp. founder Ray Kroc). At the ranch, Kessler employed a full-time cook, driver, housekeeper and groundskeeper. The couple moved to their home in Malibu, California, where there was no full-time staff or assistance.
“Gerald Kessler would spend most of his time in the Malibu home in bed on the second floor of the house. His physical limitations made it impossible to feed himself due to the location of the kitchen on the first floor. He was entirely dependent on Melanie Williams for all food, water and medication,” according to the complaint.
Kessler’s son Bryan died in 2013, leaving him with two surviving children, Craig and Sheree. During this period of “immense grief and confusion,” the plaintiffs said that Kessler changed his will to give Williams total control over the vast majority of assets held in his revocable trust. “This fiduciary structure was the complete opposite of any fiduciary structure entered into by Gerald Kessler before introduction of Melanie Williams,” his family claims.
Further, they allege that Williams “cared very little about the personal welfare of Gerald Kessler and was focused entirely on her own imagined acting career.” For example, they said that when Kessler was in intensive care, Williams, “instead of adjusting her schedule to be with her dying purported husband, chose to have elective plastic surgery on her lips.”
Meadow Williams tells a totally different story.
Kessler was “a dominating figure in every aspect of his life and in his relationships,” according to court papers filed on Sept. 14 by Williams’ other lawyers, Leigh Goddard and Laura Jacobsen of McDonald Carano Wilson. “It was his world, and Ms. Williams, like everyone else lucky enough to have known him, were simply enthralled to be a part of it. Everyone but these greedy family members.”
Williams said Kessler had strained relationships with his children and most of his grandchildren, and didn’t speak to some of them. He also spent years in litigation against his son Craig over a property dispute and against daughter Sheree related to prior trusts.
So what is the court actually going to look at when it decides whether the will is valid?
“The first and most important thing is capacity,” said Laura Zwicker, who chairs the private-client services group at Greenberg Glusker Fields Claman & Machtinger in Los Angeles and is not involved in the case. “Did he have the capacity to make a will? Unfortunately for the kids, capacity to make a will is one of the lowest levels.”
The term of art is whether Kessler knew “the natural objects of his bounty”—that is, did he remember that he had children and know what property he owned?
Based on what Williams describes, that will be a tough one for his family. The same month that he changed his will—August 2013—he also led his company’s biannual sales meeting, even planning minute details such as the schedule for shuttle vans from the airport and the flowers in the garden. He gave a speech to kick off the meeting, and introduced new technology to track sales information.
There’s also the question of the marriage. Williams argues Kessler knew her divorce might not have been final, but he didn’t care. Three weeks before getting married, Kessler asked Arent Fox partner Allan Anderson for help in getting a copy of Williams’ divorce decree from Los Angeles County Superior Court.
Anderson sent a messenger service to find the file. The messenger reported no divorce decree was recorded—and submitted an affidavit to Kessler to that effect.
Furthermore, Kessler had changed the terms of the trust twice before the marriage, in 2007 and 2009—leaving more to Williams each time.
Zwicker said it doesn’t necessarily matter whether or not Williams was his wife. “You are not required to leave your assets to your family. You can leave them to the dog or the next-door neighbor,” she said. But what might matter is if the family can cast Williams as a caregiver.
States including Nevada have laws designed to curb the ability of caregivers to manipulate the elderly or infirm to leave them all their money. But Williams argues it doesn’t apply here because she was a loved one and she was not paid for her services as a caregiver.
As Williams put it in her Sept. 12 declaration, “The plaintiffs have suggested that I somehow controlled Gerry’s decisions and actions during our relationship. Nothing could be further from the truth. … Gerry never did anything he didn’t want to do.”
IMAGE: Meadow Williams and Jerry Kessler at the Los Angeles Premiere of ‘Raven’ in 2009.
