A trial court always has the power to reconsider its own decisions, without any requirement of manifest error or new evidence, and it was particularly appropriate for the Orphans’ Court to reconsider its order appointing an administrator of an estate when there had been multiple petitions requesting appointment for different administrators and the appointment was made in response to an amended petition without notice to any other party in interest. Because the register of wills had certified the appointment of the administrator to the Orphans’ Court, the court had the same discretion as the register to appoint “any fit person” to serve as administrator when there was no one with greater priority in the order of persons eligible for appointment. It was not an abuse of discretion for the court to appoint a lawyer experienced in estate administration, and who was preferred by the mothers of the two minor heirs, as administrator over the decedent’s mother, who was not an intestate heir, had health issues, did not have a personal relationship with the decedent’s minor sons, and expected to claim a commission of 5% in addition to legal fees and other costs, because the mother’s family relationship to the decedent did not give her any preference or priority. Estate of Trever Glen Staten, ___ A.4th ___, 2026 PA Super 227 (10/8/2026).
While the individual members of the “board of managers” of the educational center established by the donor have a proprietary right and interest in the their control over the donated funds, and so were indispensible parties to the litigation over the funds, it was not necessary to serve them with citations because they were petitioners in the initial action that was filed in the civil division and transferred to the Orphans’ Court, and had already consented to the jurisdiction of the court. The Orphans’ Court erred when it held that the deed of gift by donor to the university did not create a trust because the university was named as both the trustee and sole beneficiary, and that the legal and equitable interests were merged, because the deed of gift was intended to create a charitable trust, for which a designated beneficiary is not required. Because there was a dispute on whether the donor had ever signed the deed of gift, and a writing signed by the settlor is required to create a trust, the order granting judgment on the pleadings was vacated and remanded for further proceedings. Allan P. Kirby Center for Free Enterprise and Entrepreneurship, 538 MDA 2025 (Pa. Super. 10/6/2026) (non-precedential).
A permanent injunction issued by the Orphans’ Court was not outside of the scope requested, and was not impermissibly vague, overbroad, or imprecise, when a charitable organization formed by a fraternal organization petitioned for a declaration that it was “separate and distinct” from the fraternal organization and the Orphans’ Court enjoined the fraternal organization from attempting to take control of the charity’s assets or interfering with the performance of the duties of the charity’s officers and trustees. It was also not error for the Orphans’ Court to conclude that amendments to the articles of incorporation that were never filed were ineffective, and that by-law amendments that conflicted with the unamended articles were also ineffective. It was within the discretion of the Orphans’ Court to refuse to hear claims brought under the Pennsylvania Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance Act, but the court should have transferred those claims to the civil division and not simply ignored them. Home for Orphans of Odd Fellows of Pennsylvania, 1213 C.D. 2023 and 1434 C.D. 2023 (Pa. Cmwlth. 10/8/2026) (opinion not reported).
Dauphin County has joined Butler and Westmoreland counties in adopting a general rule requiring the disclosure of the use of “generative artificial intelligence” (also known as “large language models”) in the preparation of any pleading or other filing submitted to the court. “Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence; No. 10-08-MD-2026; No. 2026-CV-00105-AO; No. 2226-0001; AO-08-2026” (9/7/2026), 56 Pa.B. 6483 (10/3/2026).
See “Problems with ‘Chatbots’” for additional information on why the use of generative AI in legal drafting can cause problems.
The Internal Revenue Service has published proposed regulations on the installment payments of federal income tax that may be payable on the gain realized in a qualified sale or exchange of farmland under I.R.C. section 1062. “Election To Pay in Installments Tax on Gain From Certain Farmland Property,” 91 FR 61367 (9/29/2026).
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It was not an abuse of discretion for the Register of Wills to appoint the decedent’s mother to administer her daughter’s estate, and not the father, and it was not an abuse of discretion for the Orphans’ Court to refuse to overturn the appointment on appeal. The mother and father were the two intestate heirs, and had equal claims to letters of administration, but the mother and father were divorced and would be unable to serve together as co-administrators. The deceased daughter had lived with her mother (and not her father) for most of her life, and the father had a history of mental illness and criminal convictions and had been unable to work for several years, while the mother owned a business and was familiar with the duties of administering an estate, leading the Register to conclude that the mother was better suited to administer the estate. In re: Estate of Makayla N. Belton, 2786 EDA 2025 (Pa. Super. 9/21/2026) (non-precedential).
The Superior Court has affirmed the grant of summary judgement by the Orphans’ Court holding that the attempted exercise of a limited power of appointment was invalid because it was not to a “charity” as defined by the trust document. In re: Trust under Agreement of Sara Mellon Scaife, 866 WDA 2025 (Pa. Super. 9/23/2026) (non-precedential), aff’g, Scaife Trust, 3 Fid.Rep.4th 223 (Allegheny O.C. 2025).
The tax clause in the will executed by the decedent after his divorce from his first wife and before his marriage to his second wife directed that all death taxes be paid from the decedent’s revocable trust, and the clause was interpreted to require the payment of the entire amount of the inheritance tax out of the share of the estate passing to the revocable tax for the benefit of the decedent’s children by his first marriage, so that none of the tax was payable from the intestate share of the estate passing to the decedent’s second wife under 20 Pa.C.S. § 2507(3). In re: Estate of Jeffrey W. Tott, Deceased, 1144 WDA 2025 (Pa. Super. 9/16/2026) (non-precedential).
[DBE Commentary: There are two strange things about this opinion. The first is that the parties and the courts framed the issue as whether the second wife got the “benefit” of the tax clause, but the tax clause did not (and could not) provide any benefit to the second wife. If there were no tax clause, the Inheritance Tax Act would require each beneficiary to bear the burden of the inheritance tax on his or her share of the estate, but the intestate share of the surviving spouse would bear a tax of 0%, so the children’s trust would simply pay the inheritance tax on their own share of the estate. The real issue was whether the tax clause imposed a burden on the second wife of having to pay half of the inheritance tax on the share of the estate passing to the trust for the children.
Both the parties and the Superior Court felt the need to discuss and distinguish In re Corso’s Estate, 494 Pa. 269, 431 A.2d 253 (1981), but the decedent in that case had died in 1976, when there was an inheritance tax rate of 6% for surviving spouses. In both cases, the second marriage was after the execution of the will, so the surviving wife was entitled to an intestate share of the estate. But the issue in Corso was whether the tax clause should benefit the second wife by requiring the children of the decedent to pay the inheritance tax on the intestate share passing to the second wife, while the issue in Tott was whether the tax clause should burden the second wife by requiring her to pay half of the inheritance tax on the share passing to the children, and no one seems to have noticed that difference.
The second strange thing about the Tott case is that only the burden of the inheritance tax was disputed, and not the burden of any federal estate tax. (The estate inventory was reported to be more than $55 million, and a “federal inheritance tax return” was filed, so there should have been some federal estate tax payable unless there were more than $29 million in debts and expenses.) How was it possible for the parties to litigate the effect of the tax clause on the payment of inheritance tax without also disputing, or at least considering, the effect of the tax clause on the payment of federal estate tax?]
[DBE Supplemental Comment: It has been suggested that the parties and the courts referred to both the federal estate tax and the Pennsylvania inheritance tax as “inheritance taxes,” and so the dispute was about the payment of both kinds of taxes. That is certainly possible, and it explains the “second strange thing.” However, the first strange thing is still strange, because the intestate share of the second wife would not be subject to federal estate tax either.]
It was not an abuse of discretion for the Orphans’ Court to appoint the alleged incapacitated person’s granddaughter as his guardian, rather than the AIP’s nephew, when the nephew had a closer relationship with the AIP’s daughter (who had proposed the nephew as guardian and appealed the appointment of the granddaughter) than with other family members and there was videotape evidence (and pending criminal charges) of the daughter’s involvement in the abuse of the AIP by her husband. In re: Estate of Harold M. Mathias, an Alleged Incapacitated Person, 1141 WDA 2025 (Pa. Super. 9/16/2026) (non-precedential).
The Orphans’ Court Procedural Rules Committee has proposed a new Pa.R.O.C.P. 4.8 that would define “signature” for purposes of filings with the Orphans’ Court to include electronic copies of signatures and computer-generated signatures, and has proposed conforming changes to Rule 4.7 on electronic filing. The proposed comments make it clear that that the new definition would only apply to court filings and not other documents, such as wills. Comments on the proposed rules should be submitted to the committee by November 9, 2026, with email as the preferred method for comments. “Proposed Amendment of Pa.R.O.C.P. 4.7 and Adoption of Pa.R.O.C.P. 4.8,” 56 Pa.B. 6175 (9/19/2026).