WHEELING – WesBanco Bank Inc. is asking the court for guidance in disbursing funds from an estate.
Wesbanco Bank Inc. is doing business as Wesbanco Trust and Investment Services, as executor of the Estate of Twila O. Whipkey.
The Community Foundation for the Ohio Valley Inc. and Diabetes Camp of West Virginia Inc., which is doing business as Camp Kno Koma, were also named as defendants in the suit.
Stoy and Twila Whipkey entered into an inter vivos revocable trust agreement with WesBanco in 1999 that contains a joint and survivor provision, according to a complaint filed in Ohio Circuit Court.
WesBanco claims Stoy Whipkey died in 2007, which left Twila Whipkey as the sole trustor and in 2013, Twila Whipkey died, leaving WesBanco to administer her estate.
On Sept. 6, 2011, Whipkey executed a Second Codicil to her will in which she purports to amend the trust by limiting half of the income for diabetes research designating the West Virginia University Diabetes research program as recipient of that half, if the trustees approved of the program. She designated the other half to Camp Kno Koma.
“The purpose of this Declaratory Judgment Action is to obtain guidance and approval from the Court regarding the validity of Mrs. Whipley’s purported attempted to amend her revocable inter vivos trust by a testamentary provision contained in the Second Codicil,” the complaint states.
The trustee has been unable to find a separate legal entity at WVU to which to provide the funds and believes the funds should be provided to WVU with instructions that the funds be used only for diabetes research.
WesBanco is seeking the court to grant a hearing on the matter and that the court make a determination declaring the funds for diabetes research be given to WVU with the direction that the funds only be used for diabetes research. It is being represented by James C. Gardill and Richard N. Beaver of Phillips, Gardill, Kaiser & Altmeyer.
Ohio Circuit Court case number: 15-C-354