Confidentiality violated, judge rules in Scaife case

Filings related to trust fund dispute

Parties in a nine-figure trust fund dispute involving the Scaife family fortune violated a court-sanctioned agreement when they filed several documents under seal, Judge Kathleen A. Durkin of Allegheny County Orphans Court has ruled in an order made public Thursday morning.

The filings related to the health of the late Jennie Scaife of Florida. She and her brother, David Scaife of Shadyside, filed a 4-year-old lawsuit alleging that three trustees — H. Yale Gutnick, James Walton and PNC Bank — improperly allowed their father, Richard Mellon Scaife, to deplete a family trust fund in order to prop up his newspaper holdings.

Ms. Scaife’s failure to sit for a deposition prompted the sealed filings, the first by Mr. Gutnick in June, and a response by her own attorneys in August. Frederick N. Frank, an attorney representing the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Philadelphia Inquirer, challenged the sealing.

A Sept. 15, 2015, confidentiality order set up a procedure for filing confidential documents in the case. The order is meant to give the newspapers the opportunity to object before filings are made under seal.

“The Court believes that neither Gutnick nor Scaife have complied with the Confidentiality Order,” Judge Durkin wrote.

The judge ruled that Mr. Gutnick can start the process again by filing in a manner consistent with the confidentiality order. The matter may now be moot, as Ms. Scaife died on Nov. 29 at the age of 55. It is unclear whether her death will undermine the litigation, which her estate can opt to continue.