Chapter 12 - Raymond’s counterattack
My father did not surrender gracefully.
He hired excellent counsel.
Then attacked the governance changes.
Not through violence.
Court.
Where powerful families should fight.
He argued:
My proxy termination violated longstanding family agreements.
The trust-protector removal exceeded trustee authority.
The property-board restructuring was retaliation.
My public declaration at dinner showed bad faith.
Some arguments were weak.
One was not.
The mansion property vote had occurred at a meeting where one cousin participated remotely without technically valid notice under the LLC agreement.
Rebecca discovered it.
“Problem.”
“How bad?”
“The vote can be challenged.”
I wanted to say:
Fix it retroactively.
She said:
“No shortcuts.”
We called a new properly noticed meeting.
Independent counsel.
Raymond’s representative attended.
The vote happened again.
Same outcome.
Three to one.
Legally cleaner.
My father still sued.
He lost most claims after nine months.
One small victory:
The court held Raymond retained limited rights to access historical family records under a separate agreement.
Fine.
Accountability does not require us to win every paragraph.
The larger challenge failed because my voting proxy was expressly revocable.
I had simply never revoked it.
Family mythology turned a revocable document into a throne.
That was revealing.
After the ruling, my brother Nicholas said:
“So Dad controlled us because nobody checked the footnote?”
I answered:
“Basically.”
He laughed.
Then stopped.
Not funny.
May you like
Power loves unread documents.
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