## Facts

- James Calvert McGee participated in a robbery that resulted in Katherine Ryon’s death and was convicted of felony murder.
- The Estate of Katherine Ryon, through its personal representative Robert Ryon Duvall, sued McGee for compensatory and punitive damages arising from battery and conversion.
- The parties executed a settlement providing for entry of judgment against McGee for $100,000 in compensatory damages and $500,000 in punitive damages.
- McGee was a beneficiary of a spendthrift trust created by his mother, administered by trustee Frank B. Walsh, Jr., with periodic payments to or for McGee.
- The trust contained a spendthrift clause barring alienation and shielding both trust income and principal from the beneficiary’s creditors while held by the trustee.
- Under the settlement, the Estate surrendered its right to attach McGee’s periodic trust payments.
- After judgment, the Estate sought to collect by serving a writ of garnishment on the trustee to reach the trust principal (corpus).

## Issues

1. Whether a tort judgment creditor may satisfy a judgment against a beneficiary by garnishing the principal of a valid spendthrift trust despite a spendthrift provision.
2. Whether Maryland law should recognize a tort-creditor exception permitting invasion of spendthrift trust principal absent legislative action or an existing exception.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals of Maryland affirmed the circuit court.
- The court held that a tort judgment creditor may not invade the corpus of a valid spendthrift trust to satisfy a judgment against the beneficiary absent legislative authorization or a recognized exception under Maryland law.
- The court declined to expand the limited categories of creditors allowed to reach spendthrift trusts, reasoning that any such change is for the legislature (or prior recognized doctrine), not ad hoc judicial creation.
- The court noted the Estate’s settlement-based waiver of rights to attach periodic trust payments and rejected the attempt to collect instead by garnishing principal.

## Legal Principles

- A valid spendthrift provision generally bars a beneficiary’s creditors from reaching trust income or principal while held by the trustee.
- Exceptions allowing creditors to reach spendthrift trust assets are limited and are not expanded without clear legal authority.
- Policy arguments distinguishing involuntary tort creditors from voluntary contract creditors do not, by themselves, create a judicial exception to spendthrift protection.
- A judgment creditor cannot avoid spendthrift protections by seeking trust principal when the creditor has contractually surrendered rights to attach trust distributions.

## Conclusion

Maryland’s highest court enforced the spendthrift clause as written and refused to create a tort-judgment exception, holding that the Estate could not garnish the trust corpus to satisfy its judgment against the beneficiary.


Duvall v. McGee, 826 A.2d 416 (Md. 2003)