$200 million settlement proposed in Scaife litigation

The son and grandchildren of Richard Mellon Scaife and his estate have agreed to a $200 million settlement of claims against the trustees of a 1935 trust fund.

A petition to approve the agreement was filed Tuesday in Allegheny County Orphans’ Court.

Scaife was the owner and publisher of the Tribune-Review.

The trust was established by Scaife’s mother, Sarah Mellon Scaife, for the benefit of Scaife. After his death, the balance of any assets left in the trust was to go to his heirs — Scaife’s children and their children.

Scaife’s children, David and Jennie, claimed the onetime $450 million trust, which was empty upon Richard Scaife’s death in 2014, should have had assets remaining.

They filed suit in that same year seeking remuneration from the trustees of the 1935 trust: PNC Bank, Scaife cousin James Walton and attorney Yale Gutnick.

Jennie and David Scaife contended the trustees improperly permitted Richard Scaife to use the funds in the trust to support his personal interests, including his newspaper publishing activities.

The trustees say they did nothing wrong and the children were financially taken care of in a separate trust that was also established by Scaife’s mother.

Jennie Scaife died Nov. 29, 2018. Her estate is entitled to a portion of any settlement calculated from July 4, 2014, her father’s death, until the date she died.

The remainder will go to her brother, David Scaife, and back into the trust.