Getty Lawyers Asked to Reconsider Pact

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge, siding with the lone holdout to settlement of litigation over the $4-billion Sarah C. Getty Trust, on Wednesday asked Getty family lawyers to consider changing their agreement to protect the rights of unborn heirs to the J. Paul Getty fortune.

“I’ve (privately) expressed the concerns I have with the settlement agreement,” Judge Richard P. Byrne told the two dozen Getty family lawyers gathered in his courtroom. “I have some questions (and) I’ve asked counsel to consider the points raised by Mr. (Seth M.) Hufstedler.”

Without further elaboration, Byrne directed the lawyers to meet later in the evening in order to come up with a compromise agreement by today, when hearings are scheduled to resume.

On Tuesday, Hufstedler, the court-appointed guardian for 16-year-old Tara Getty and unborn Getty family members, urged Byrne to amend the settlement proposal to “give at least equal weight to the growth” of the principal as to the income earned by the trust to ensure that future Getty heirs share in the oil billionaire’s estate.

He said the proposed settlement, which has been agreed to by all 26 living Gettys including Tara Getty, failed to impose “some kind of check on the independence” of trustees’ management of the trust funds. However, none of the other three lawyers who represent future Getty offspring joined Hufstedler in his opposition.

The settlement proposal calls for the $4-billion trust--established in 1934 by J. Paul Getty and his mother, Sarah C. Getty--to be divided into smaller trusts totaling about $750 million each. The remaining $1 billion has already been earmarked for state and federal taxes.

The proposal also requires that Gordon Getty, now the sole trustee of the Getty family trust, resign his post and relinquish any claims against the trust. Finally, the settlement proposal endorses Judge Byrne’s preliminary decision to pay $1.1 billion in capital gains taxes out of current trust income.