Oak Creek firm’s future still in limbo
Judge considers founder’s intent
The fate of a successful Oak Creek company remains in limbo as a probate court judge considers whether the founder’s will and trust mandates that control of the firm be returned to his daughter, currently suspended from her CEO duties.
Some of her siblings argue that Jan Drzewiecki has blown her chance to carry out their father Walter Yakich’s legacy, and cited just a few recently discovered emails they say confirm longrunning fears that she intended to cut them out of their share of Seville Flexpack Corp. — even if it meant the end of the firm.
“She has been exactly the anti-trustee,” said Gary Krawcyzk, attorney for a sister. “This is not Walter’s way. Walter’s way was to be fair to everyone.”
His comments came late Monday during yet another heated hearing in the two-year litigation. Milwaukee County Circuit Judge David Borowski had long ago removed Drzewiecki as trustee of her father’s trusts, jailed her twice for contempt of court and named a special master who suspended her and her twin brother, Jay Yakich, from their exnew ecutive positions. For months, the company has been run by a consultant acting as interim CEO.
On Monday, Borowski questioned Drzewiecki’s newest attorney, Mark Foley, about a letter he sent the court expressing concern about how much of the case has proceeded off-the-record, and how much contact special master Douglas Frazer and his attorney had with Borowski without notice to other lawyers.
A week earlier, Borowski had taken all dozen lawyers into his chambers for nearly an hour. When the lawyers and judge returned on the record, Borowski said only that new “explosive” information had come to light and gave everyone more time to see if the developments might prompt settlement.
On Monday, he told Foley that was largely as a courtesy to Foley, since the discussion was about the newly found emails that Borowski said would reflect poorly — if not criminally — on Drzewiecki.
He said he kept the language vague and obtuse “as to not put information in public that could taint a sale of Seville,” something already recommended by the special master, endorsed by the judge but adamantly opposed by Drzewieicki and Jay Yakich.
The judge said he took offense at Foley’s implication that there was something inappropriate about informal meetings with the special master and offthe-record meetings and responded by having all the lawyers give their own on-the-record summaries of last week’s in-chambers proceedings.
They agreed that the Drzewiecki emails just confirmed, or buttressed, the grounds Borowski had cited earlier in removing her for breaching her fiduciary duties to the other beneficiaries of her father’s trusts — her three other siblings and her late brother’s wife.
Borowski noted that Drzewiecki wrote of wanting her previous lawyers to “bury” one sister with litigation and costs, but wrote in another email that she wanted to bury her sister with a hatchet, “which I take to be very serious,” he said.
Foley did eventually get to argue his earlier petition that Walter Yakich’s will and trusts clearly wanted Drzewiecki to have control of Seville, and to make a $4.5 million gift to an education charity established in his late wife’s name. Foley said claims of bad acts by Drzewiecki and her twin brother are irrelevant to honoring their father’s intent. Her first duty, he said, was to see that her father’s intent was carried out.
The other siblings’ attorneys argued that the trust itself contemplates a sale of assets, such as Seville, if necessary.
Walter Yakich started Seville Flexpack in 1978. It makes things like chip bags and printed labels for bottles at its plant at 9905 Ridgeview Drive. It employs a few dozen people, runs two shifts, has annual revenue of about $15 million and no debt. Lawyers in the probate case have said no one will buy Seville, or make only lowball offers, while its control is in dispute.
Borowski said he will make a decision on Drzewiecki’s petitions in late January. Appeals are likely.