In a February 2022 filing, Julia Beaman and William Bobbs Jr. accused Columbus attorney F. Jefferson Crump III of legal malpractice in the creation of a $3‑million QTIP trust for their late father, William Bobbs Sr.
They alleged that Crump, who had previously represented the father’s second wife, Jan, had a conflict of interest and that the trust gave her more than the intended net income, siphoning funds that should have gone to the siblings.
The siblings claimed the father lacked mental capacity when he signed the trust, citing a secretly recorded December 2017 lunch in which he supposedly told them the trust could be altered at will.
A three‑judge panel of the Court of Appeals of Indiana, writing for Judge Patricia A. May, held that the siblings knew the alleged injury in December 2017 and that the two‑year limitation under Indiana Code section 34‑11‑2‑4 barred the complaint filed on February 24, 2022; the father’s signature on the trust in January 2018 is noted as the date the limitation period began.
With the appeal dismissed, the trial court’s summary judgment in favor of Crump stands, leaving the $3‑million fund to be administered by First Financial Bank for Jan Bobbs’s care and eventual distribution to the siblings after her death.