Chapman College : Heirs Demand Repayment of All Donations

Heirs of the late Newport Beach millionaire Donald James Bentley, embroiled in a bitter financial dispute with Chapman College, counterattacked Friday by demanding repayment of perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars that Bentley had donated to the school.

Bentley’s widow, Irene, and three sons made the demand in a lawsuit filed in Orange County Superior Court. It comes in response to an earlier lawsuit filed by the college last year accusing Bentley’s heirs of reneging on a $1-million pledge that he made 2 years before his death in 1986.

“The moral reason behind this is that the Bentley family is basically shocked by the conduct of Chapman College in suing to recover this pledge,” said Richard J. Grabowski, an Irvine attorney representing the family in their suit.

“And they feel that Mr. Bentley would have been very disappointed and displeased with the college for all this,” he said in a telephone interview.

A top Chapman administrator said in an interview that although school officials regret their deepening rift with the Bentleys, they believe themselves to be on solid legal footing in the dispute.

Bentley founded Bentley Laboratories in 1963 and went on to amass a fortune manufacturing medical equipment. The firm was sold in 1981 for $243 million.

The Bentleys have been major patrons of educational and cultural organizations in Orange County, contributing millions of dollars to such institutions as the Orange County Performing Arts Center, Hoag Hospital and Big Brothers of Orange County.

Bentley began making donations to Chapman College in the early 1980s and soon jumped near the top of the school’s list of benefactors with a 1984 pledge of $1 million. Following that commitment, the school agreed that it would name its business school after Bentley.

But after Bentley’s death, the heirs who controlled his trust told the school that they would not honor that endowment pledge, citing business reversals and several costly lawsuits that they said had drained their wealth.

Escalating the confrontation, the college decided that it would not name the school after Bentley and moved in court against his heirs in March, 1988.

Bentley’s family has not yet been able to determine just how much the late industrialist donated to the school, Bentley said. They have evidence of at least $40,000 in gifts, Grabowski said, but he estimated that the actual figure may have reached into the hundreds of thousands.

But Thomas D. Beck, assistant to the president at Chapman, seemed to dispute that estimate in an interview.

“In respect to the donations, we wouldn’t reveal that figure,” Beck said. But Beck added that he would be surprised if the Bentleys can document previous donations much in excess of the minimum $40,000 figure cited by Grabowski.

Beck, upon learning of the lawsuit Friday evening, said: “I think it’s terribly unfortunate that the situation has gotten to the point that (the family) feels this way.

“We thought we had had a good relationship, and it’s always too bad when things take a turn for the worse like this. We’re very unhappy to see this.” The administrator added that he believes the college is in a “very strong position” to pursue in court its claim to the $1-million written pledge, which was a key part of a $56-million Chapman fund-raising drive in 1986.

But Grabowski asserted that the Bentley donations were to come from a community trust fund that required the authorization of both Bentley and his wife. Irene Bentley never gave such consent, Grabowski said, making any past donations and pledges illegitimate.

The Bentleys, still living in Newport Beach, declined to speak with the press about the case, the attorney said.

Grabowski, expressing what he said were the family’s sentiments in pressing their own lawsuit, said: “They’re really dismayed that Chapman has so deviated from what Mr. Bentley believed were its ideals and principles. They see (Chapman’s lawsuit) as an overly zealous drive to pad its bank account.”