The ruling reversed a lower court decision that had awarded her $399,658 in attorney's fees.
Star-Ledger file photo of Eric Cantor and his daughter, Cheryl Cantor, from 2008. He disinherited his daughter, cutting her out of his $100 million estate. A state appellate panel ruled Friday that she could not recoup attorney's fees from a suit where she tried to claim half of the estate.TRENTON — In a case exposing the pitfalls of wealth, a state appellate panel ruled Friday that the daughter of a real estate mogul was not entitled to recoup attorneys’ fees, the result of a nine-year battle over half of her late father’s $90 million estate.
The ruling, which detailed more than 15 years of a venomous relationship between a wealthy Chester Township executive, Edward Cantor, and his daughter, Cheryl Cantor, reversed a lower court decision that had awarded her $399,658 in attorneys’ fees.
The unanimous ruling by the three-judge panel said courts do not award lawyers’ fees if there was no reasonable cause to bring the legal challenge, a practice intended to discourage unfounded claims that can tie a family up in court for years and drain the estate.
"In the end, (her) claim was as hollow as it had been at the beginning," the court wrote, at the same time rejecting an effort by her to reinstate the claim.
The anger ran deep between father and daughter, according to court papers, spawned initially by a business dispute.
Cantor took away a car he leased for his daughter and cancelled the insurance, foreclosed on a mortgage he held on her home and stopped paying her health insurance. She later sued him in a property dispute, and a judge ordered Cantor to pay his daughter $1.5 million in damages.
Her husband at the time, Tom Trabocco, enlarged a copy of the check and put it on a billboard near one of the disputed properties. Not long afterward, a friend of the couple — who was a prosecutor with the state — filed racketeering charges against Cantor. The couple then watched from their car, parked across the street, as Cantor was led from his 100-acre estate in handcuffs, according to court papers.
During the 15 years they had not spoken, Cantor wrote several wills making no mention of his daughter, bequeathing her $10, or intentionally omitting her. He even directed that she and her husband be banned from his funeral.
After divorcing Trabocco, Cantor and his daughter reconciled in 2000, and in the ensuing months they met for lunch, talked on the phone and exchanged hugs before she returned to her home in Italy.
Cantor, who owned and managed numerous properties in North Jersey, died of kidney failure on Feb. 19, 2002, at age 74 — the day before he was to meet with a lawyer and write a new will, according to the court.
In court papers filed after his death, Cheryl Cantor, who is now 64, claimed her father had planned to reinstate her in his will and have her divide his estate with her brother, Michael Cantor.
She claimed her brother had unduly influenced her father into keeping her out of the will. But Cantor’s widow, Jane — his third wife — rejected the claim and told a judge he had no plan write his daughter back into his will.
What’s more, the widow told the judge her husband had intended to disinherit his son because of a business dispute that also ended up in court.
Ultimately, Cantor’s son inherited the bulk of the $90 million estate, and under the terms of a prenuptial agreement he left widow $8.8 million and their sprawling estate.
Related coverage: