(1) Except as otherwise provided in the contract, a trustee is not personally liable on a contract properly entered into in the trustee‘s fiduciary capacity in the course of administering the trust if the trustee in the contract disclosed the fiduciary capacity.

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Terms Used In Utah Code 75-7-1010

  • Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
  • Estate: includes the property of the decedent, trust, or other person whose affairs are subject to this title as originally constituted and as it exists from time to time during administration. See Utah Code 75-1-201 v2
  • Fiduciary: A trustee, executor, or administrator.
  • Fiduciary: includes a personal representative, guardian, conservator, and trustee. See Utah Code 75-1-201 v2
  • Indemnification: In general, a collateral contract or assurance under which one person agrees to secure another person against either anticipated financial losses or potential adverse legal consequences. Source: FDIC
  • Obligation: An order placed, contract awarded, service received, or similar transaction during a given period that will require payments during the same or a future period.
  • Person: means an individual or an organization. See Utah Code 75-1-201 v2
  • Personal representative: includes executor, administrator, successor personal representative, special administrator, and persons who perform substantially the same function under the law governing their status. See Utah Code 75-1-201 v2
  • Proceeding: includes action at law and suit in equity. See Utah Code 75-1-201 v2
  • Property: includes both real and personal property or any interest therein and means anything that may be the subject of ownership. See Utah Code 75-1-201 v2
  • Tort: A civil wrong or breach of a duty to another person, as outlined by law. A very common tort is negligent operation of a motor vehicle that results in property damage and personal injury in an automobile accident.
  • Trust: includes :
              (60)(a)(i) a health savings account, as defined in Section 223of the Internal Revenue Code;
              (60)(a)(ii) an express trust, private or charitable, with additions thereto, wherever and however created; or
              (60)(a)(iii) a trust created or determined by judgment or decree under which the trust is to be administered in the manner of an express trust. See Utah Code 75-1-201 v2
  • Trustee: A person or institution holding and administering property in trust.
  • Trustee: includes an original, additional, and successor trustee, and cotrustee, whether or not appointed or confirmed by the court. See Utah Code 75-1-201 v2
(2) A trustee is personally liable for torts committed in the course of administering a trust, or for obligations arising from ownership or control of trust property, including liability for violation of environmental law, only if the trustee is personally at fault.
(3) A claim based on a contract entered into by a trustee in the trustee’s fiduciary capacity, on an obligation arising from ownership or control of trust property, or on a tort committed in the course of administering a trust, may be asserted in a judicial proceeding against the trustee in the trustee’s fiduciary capacity, whether or not the trustee is personally liable for the claim.
(4) The question of liability as between the trust estate and the trustee individually may be determined in a proceeding for accounting, surcharge, or indemnification or other appropriate proceeding.
(5) Whenever an instrument creating a trust reserves to the settlor, or vests in an advisory or investment committee, or in any other person or persons, including one or more cotrustees to the exclusion of the trustee or to the exclusion of one or more of several trustees, authority to direct the making or retention of any investment, the excluded trustee or trustees shall not be liable, either individually or as a fiduciary, for any loss resulting from the making or retention of any investment pursuant to such direction.
(6) In the absence of actual knowledge or information which would cause a reasonable trustee to inquire further, no trustee shall be liable for failure to take necessary steps to compel the redress of any breach of trust or fiduciary duty by any predecessor personal representative, trustee, or other fiduciary. The provisions of this section shall not be construed to limit the fiduciary liability of any trustee for his own acts or omissions with respect to the trust estate.