Eighth Circuit Court Denies UMB Bank’s RICO Claim Against Benton Heirs

Posted January 11, 2024

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied UMB Bank’s bid to reinstate a lawsuit filed against the heirs of the Thomas Hart Benton estate, calling UMB’s argument groundless.

UMB Bank and the heirs of Thomas Hart Benton began the lawsuit in 2019 when the heirs claimed UMB had mismanaged the trust’s assets and demanded the bank be removed as the trustee. UMB was then forced to resign as the trustee.

However, in 2021, UMB Bank decided to sue Benton’s heirs Jessie Lyman and her three children Anthony Gude, Daria Lyman and Cybele McCormick, claiming violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act in the Western District of Missouri.

“Because UMB does not allege — certainly not with particularity — that any criminal activity tainted these private attorney-client communications over how to pressure UMB into being more responsive to the beneficiaries’ requests, that activity cannot be conduct forming a predicate act of fraud under RICO.” U.S. Circuit Judge James B. Loken wrote in a unanimous opinion.

The case was later dismissed in June 2022 but in September 2023, UMB asked the appeals court to reinstate the lawsuit. The request was denied by a three-judge panel that called UMB’s argument groundless and failed to amount to extortion.

Andrew Schermerhorn, who represented the Benton heirs, called UMB’s request for reinstatement nothing more than a distraction and failed to prove extortion by the Benton heirs.

“The decision by the Eighth Circuit supports our conviction that UMB Bank’s intentional misapplication of the federal RICO statute was strategically aimed at pressuring Jessie Benton and her children to give up or compromise their probate claims against UMB, while diverting attention from UMB’s mishandling of the Benton family trust,” Schermerhorn said in the statement.