Can a Lawsuit Over a Trust Also Freeze a House Sale? The Story of Newell v. Superior Court

Picture this: your father dies, and you find out his caregiver rewrote his trust so that she — not you — gets almost everything, including the house. You sue to undo it. But by the time your case gets moving, the caregiver has already used trust money to buy a different property. Can you put a legal hold on that new property while the case plays out?

That was the real question behind Newell v. Superior Court, a California appeals court decision from December 2024. It's a case about a legal tool called a "lis pendens" — and about how far a family member can go to protect property while fighting over who really controls it.

The Backstory

Arthur Mancini and his wife Julia set up a family trust in 2002. The plan was simple: after both of them died, their three children — including their daughter, Lucy Mancini Newell — would inherit everything. Julia died in 2009, and years later Arthur made Newell the person in charge of the trust and its sole beneficiary going forward.

Then, in 2020, Arthur hired a caregiver named Neneth Rollins. He was 89. She was 56.

Just six months into the job, Arthur rewrote his trust. The new version — drafted by a lawyer Rollins herself had recommended — gave that lawyer a hefty 9% cut of the trust's assets and split most of the money between Rollins and Newell. A few months after that, Arthur changed the trust again: the lawyer's cut jumped to 15%, Rollins became the sole backup trustee, and now she was set to inherit 100% of the trust. Newell was cut out entirely.

Around that same time, Arthur stopped speaking to his daughter. He died in November 2022. The lawyer who had drafted the new trust documents had already died a month earlier, so Rollins stepped in as trustee. Newell didn't find out about any of this until she received a legal notice after her father's death.

The Lawsuit — and the House

Newell filed a petition in probate court to challenge the trust changes. Her argument rested on a specific part of California law: when a caregiver ends up as the beneficiary of a gift from the person they cared for, the law assumes something went wrong — fraud or undue influence — unless the caregiver can prove otherwise with strong evidence.

While that fight was underway, Newell discovered that Rollins had used trust money to buy a house in Van Nuys, California. Worried the property might get sold or hidden before the case was resolved, Newell recorded a "lis pendens" against it — essentially a public flag on the property's title records that says, "This property is tied up in a lawsuit, buyer beware." She also asked the court to place the property under what's called a constructive trust, a legal mechanism used to prevent someone from profiting off property that isn't rightfully theirs.

Rollins fought back by asking the court to erase the lis pendens. Her argument: Newell's lawsuit was about who controls the trust, not about who owns this specific house — so the flag on the property's title didn't belong there. The trial court agreed with Rollins and wiped out the lis pendens, also ordering Newell to pay Rollins's attorney's fees.

Newell appealed.

What the Appeals Court Decided

The appeals court sided with Newell, and its reasoning comes down to how trusts actually work.

Here's the key idea: a trust itself cannot legally own anything. Only a person — the trustee — can hold title to property on the trust's behalf. So right now, the deed to the Van Nuys house lists Rollins, personally, as the titleholder (acting as trustee).

If Newell wins her case and proves the trust changes were the product of fraud or undue influence, the court could remove Rollins as trustee entirely. A new trustee would then have to be appointed — and that new person's name would go on the property's title instead of Rollins's.

That, the appeals court said, is exactly what the law means by a claim that could "affect title" to real property. It doesn't matter that the property would technically still belong to "the trust" either way. What matters is whose actual name sits on the deed — and Newell's lawsuit had the power to change that name. That's enough to justify keeping a lis pendens in place while the case is decided.

The court also brushed aside a worry raised by the trial judge: that allowing lawsuits like this to support a lis pendens would open the floodgates to abuse, with people slapping legal flags on properties anytime a trust dispute pops up. The appeals court pointed out that California law already has plenty of built-in safeguards against that kind of abuse — including a requirement that whoever files the lis pendens must prove their underlying claim is likely to succeed, and a rule that makes the losing side pay the other party's attorney's fees if the lis pendens turns out to be unjustified. Those safeguards, the court said, are the Legislature's job to fine-tune — not something judges should work around by narrowing the law itself.

Why This Case Matters

Newell v. Superior Court clarifies something that trust litigation attorneys deal with constantly: when a fight over who should be trustee also touches property the trust owns, that fight can count as a real property claim — even if the lawsuit doesn't directly ask a court to hand over a specific parcel of land.

For families caught in disputes like Arthur's — where a caregiver ends up inheriting everything a relative expected — the case is a reminder that the law gives you real tools to freeze assets in place while the underlying fraud or undue-influence claim gets sorted out. You don't have to watch property slip away while the case is still being fought.