Scaife children claim attorney improperly withholding documents

In a 3-year-old lawsuit involving one of Pittsburgh’s largest estates, attorneys for Jennie Scaife and David Scaife contend in a court motion filed Friday that their late father’s longtime attorney and confidant is improperly withholding documents.

The siblings allege in the motion that attorney H. Yale Gutnick and his firm, Strassburger McKenna Gutnick & Gefsky, are trying to withhold communications involving late publisher Richard Mellon Scaife under attorney-client privilege, even though they held so many roles in his financial empire that they could not reasonably expect confidentiality.

By having roles in family trusts, including a disputed fund created in 1935, in the Tribune-Review media properties for which that fund was emptied, and with Mr. Scaife personally, Mr. Gutnick and the firm were “in a conflict of interest,” according to attorneys for Jennie Scaife, 54, of Florida, and David Scaife, 51, of Shadyside.

“Gutnick served as Trustee of the 1935 Trust and also as personal legal counsel to Mr. Scaife and Mr. Scaife’s agent under power of attorney. Gutnick also served as an officer and member of the Board of the Tribune-Review, as well as its counsel,” according to the motion, which includes a detailed chart of the roles. “By serving in these roles, Gutnick was in a conflict of interest.”

The disputed trust fund at the center of the case was created 82 years ago by Richard Mellon Scaife’s mother, Sarah Mellon Scaife. She dedicated it to supporting her son’s welfare, with the

balance upon his death to go to his children. There was nothing left for Jennie Scaife and David Scaife upon the publisher’s 2014 death.

The vast bulk of the $450 million withdrawn from the fund over 20 years propped up the TribuneReview. Now the late publisher’s daughter and son want trustees Mr. Gutnick, James Walton and PNC Bank to pay them an unspecified amount to make up for the spent funds.

The siblings want to see “hundreds of pages of responsive documents, which Gutnick and SMGG have wrongfully withheld from production under erroneous assertions of privilege,” according to the motion.

The pages are listed in a log of documents withheld from the daughter and son in the discovery phase of the case. The daughter and son argue that attorney-client privilege does not apply, because of the conflicts inherent in Mr. Gutnick’s roles, and because he claims to have relied on advice of counsel in his decisions on the trust fund.

David A. Strassburger, one of the attorneys representing Mr. Gutnick, could not be reached Tuesday morning for comment.

Attorneys William Pietragallo and Peter St. Tienne Wolff, representing Ms. Scaife, intend to formally present their motion to Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Kathleen Durkin on Jan. 4.