Philanthropist, daughter of late billionaire newspaper publisher
JENNIE K. SCAIFE | July 8, 1963 - Nov. 29, 2018
Jennie Scaife was a philanthropist with a special interest in animals, born into wealth but enmeshed in her later years in a bitter fight over hundreds of millions of dollars spent on a newspaper. She died Thursday.
Ms. Scaife, 55, of Palm Beach, was the daughter of Richard Mellon Scaife, the late billionaire publisher of the Tribune-Review.
Her family did not want to talk about her death on Friday, according to attorney Sanford B. Ferguson, at K&L Gates. “She’s been in a state of declining health for some time,” he said.
Mr. Ferguson said she was educated at The Ellis School in Shadyside and Pine Manor College in Boston, then returned to live in Pittsburgh for a time before moving to Florida.
“She was a substantial contributor to organizations [in Pittsburgh],” he said. “Her foundation
is focused on women’s issues, animal rights and substance abuse.”
Ms. Scaife was chair and trustee of the Scaife Family Foundation, based in West Palm Beach, which in 2016 reported making $2.8 million in grants and which has, in recent years, placed an emphasis on animal-related charities. Among its biggest grantees in 2016 were the National Disaster Search Dog Foundation, New York-based Puppies Behind Bars and the Animal Rescue League of Western Pennsylvania.
There was no immediate word on the cause and manner of Ms. Scaife’s death. The Palm Beach County medical examiner had no record of the death as of Friday morning.
Ms. Scaife had been sick — with an illness that has not been publicly detailed — all year, according to filings and court testimony in a court fight related to the estate of her father, Richard Mellon Scaife.
In that 4-year-old court fight, Ms. Scaife and her brother, David N. Scaife of Shadyside, sought to recover hundreds of millions of dollars that had been drained — inappropriately, in their view — from a trust fund to cover losses from their father’s newspapers.
The dispute centered on a trust fund created in 1935 by Sarah Mellon Scaife for the welfare of her son, Richard Mellon Scaife. His children, Jennie and David, were entitled to any remainder upon his death.
Jennie and David contend that the trustees of the fund — H. Yale Gutnick, the publisher’s longtime attorney, PNC Bank and Scaife cousin James Walton — should not have allowed the publisher to drain some $400 million over 20 years. The bulk of the fund went to support Tribune-Review properties, and it was empty at the time of Richard Mellon Scaife’s death in 2014.
Attorneys for the trustees had sought, since 2016, to schedule Ms. Scaife’s deposition. She canceled one that was set for her home state of Florida, and later said she could not travel to Pittsburgh because of medical reasons. She later offered to be deposed in Florida in twohour sessions over multiple days.
“We are not unwilling to have her testify. She’s actually looking forward to it,” said William Pietragallo, one of
Ms. Scaife’s attorneys, after a
January court argument about the deposition. “She had a couple of health episodes which she is responding nicely to, but it takes time.”
He had no additional comment Friday.
The dispute over the trust fund was rooted in years of contentious relations between Richard Mellon Scaife and his children, according to filings in Allegheny County Orphans Court.
Mr. Gutnick claimed that David Scaife sought assurances in 2007 and 2008 that the fund created by his grandmother would not be depleted to support the Tribune Review newspapers, but no promises were ever made, according to the court filings.
Attorneys for Mr. Gutnick and Mr. Walton have said that the 1935 Trust was explicitly created for Richard Mellon Scaife. They have pointed to a separate fund, the socalled Grandchildren’s Trust, which, they said, contained $560 million and paid Jennie and David each $1 million per month.
Ms. Scaife’s estate has the option of continuing to be involved in the litigation. She was unmarried and had no children.
In 2000, the Scaife Family Foundation, along with the separate Scaife Charitable Foundation, donated $10.8 million to the University of Pittsburgh toward research and treatment of neurodegenerative diseases. At the time, it was one of the largest gifts in the history of the school.
The bulk of the grant went toward facilities for the university’s Pittsburgh Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases, now located on Fifth Avenue in Oakland. The remainder was used to support program development and research activities prior to the facility’s construction.
“We have all seen family members or friends whose lives have been devastated by these diseases, and as our nation’s population ages, finding the answers to alleviating these conditions becomes increasingly urgent,” Ms. Scaife said at the time.
Ms. Scaife gave the Animal Rescue League of Western Pennsylvania $250,000 through the foundation in 2003, which had been used to renovate the East Liberty facility in 2000.
More recently, Ms. Scaife and her mother, Frannie, in March 2017 gave the Lighthouse Guild, an organization dedicated to addressing and preventing vision loss, $250,000, which helped provide a full spectrum of integrated vision and health care services to the blind or visually impaired.
Services were being handled by Quattlebaum Funeral, Cremation and Event Center, in West Palm Beach, and details were not available Friday. The family suggests that donations can be made to the Animal Rescue League of Western Pennsylvania or Puppies Behind Bars.