The estate of James Brown was the subject of more court proceedings earlier this month. The court was scheduled to hear arguments from the former trustees of the singer's charitable trust and the estate's current money manager. At issue is the 2009 settlement of another legal dispute between the estate and members of Brown's family.

The family had argued that the singer had never intended to leave everything in a trust for needy children. The estate was valued at about $100 million when Brown died in 2006. The state attorney general (no, this is not in Florida) brokered a settlement that included the singer's purported widow and her young son, his adult children and the trust. The settlement also ousted the administrators of the trust and installed a special administrator in their place.

We wrote in August that the case was winding its way through court. More details of the circumstances leading up to the 2009 settlement are included in those posts.

Considering the mess the estate was in at the time of the settlement, it's clear that something had to change. The trust had about $14,000 left; the estate owed more than $20 million. According to court documents, the former trustees had failed to have Brown's estate appraised, had sold Brown's possessions and kept the proceeds for themselves and had paid themselves $5 million in "fees."

One of the special administrator's first moves was to hire a professional money manager. That manager has turned the trust around.

We'll continue this in our next post.

Source: Huffington Post, "James Brown's Estate Saddled By Debt," Susanne M. Schafer, Oct. 30, 2011