Florida/Georgia Personal Injury & Workers Compensation

...Florida law invalidates penalty clauses in trusts, declaring: “A provision in a trust instrument purporting to penalize any interested person for contesting the trust instrument or instituting other proceedings relating to a trust estate or trust assets is unenforceable.” § 736.1108(1), Fla....

...Cf Restatement (Third) of Prop.: Wills & Don. Trans. § 8.5 cmt. b, para. 2 (2003). Thus, a beneficiary cannot be forced to choose between the right to contest an instrument and the right to take under it, and this public policy is codified in section 736.1108(1) and its probate analogue, section 732.517....

...oose an option at least as valuable as the statutory minimum. Therefore, unlike a no contest clause, an alternative devise clause does not undermine the purpose of the legal right forfeited, and thus does not penalize the beneficiary for purposes of section 736.1108(1)....

...Ramos argued, however, that he should not be required to post a bond until the court first determined the enforceability of the Trust’s bond requirement, as requested in his declaratory judgment claim. Ramos requested the trial court bifurcate the 1 See § 736.1108(1), Fla....