Asset protection case law, read against the opinions.

Reviewed by Elizabeth A. Tresp, JD, LL.M., trust & probate litigator · Updated August 2026

Most asset-protection websites cite the same dozen cases. Very few appear to have read them. FTC v. Affordable Media is routinely described as holding that impossibility is never a defense, the Ninth Circuit expressly reserved that question. Grupo Mexicano is cited as protection against pre-judgment freeze orders, footnote 7 expressly reserves fraudulent-conveyance claims, which is the only scenario that matters here. Mortensen is cited for the proposition that a solvent settlor's trust fails anyway, the court found unmanageable debt and multiple badges of fraud.

Principal Attorney Elizabeth A. Tresp litigates trust and estate disputes. That is the reason this library exists and the reason it reads the way it does: each entry separates how the case is commonly cited from what the court actually held and what actually happened. Where the record does not support a claim, we say so rather than repeat it.

Cases where the structure held

Honest libraries include these. Most do not, because a library of nothing but failures sells fear, and a library of nothing but wins sells product.

• Klabacka v. Nelson (Nev. 2017), a Nevada self-settled spendthrift trust held against an ex-spouse's support claim. The leading American decision in which a domestic asset protection trust actually worked.
• Matter of Cleopatra Cameron Gift Trust (S.D. 2019), a California direct-payment order was denied full faith and credit as a method of enforcement against a South Dakota spendthrift trust.

Cases about retained control

• FTC v. Affordable Media (the Anderson case) (9th Cir. 1999), the protector-powers case. Not the impossibility case it is said to be.
• In re Lawrence (11th Cir. 2002 and below), self-created impossibility, plus an underused due-process limit on indefinite coercive incarceration.
• SEC v. Bilzerian (D.D.C. 2000), what happens when you decline to produce the trust deed.

Cases about choice of law and situs

• Waldron v. Huber (In re Huber) (Bankr. W.D. Wash. 2013), the nexus case. Alaska in name only was not enough.
• Marine Midland Bank v. Portnoy (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. 1996), you cannot bootstrap protective foreign law with a choice-of-law clause.
• Toni 1 Trust v. Wacker (Alaska 2018), a state cannot legislate away another court's jurisdiction.
• Dahl v. Dahl (Utah 2015), a drafting-malpractice case that is usually mislabeled a DAPT case.

Cases about timing and fraudulent transfer

• Battley v. Mortensen (In re Mortensen) (Bankr. D. Alaska 2011), the federal ten-year look-back, and the most over-read case in the field.
• Grupo Mexicano v. Alliance Bond Fund (U.S. 1999), read footnote 7 before citing it.

Cases about the self-settled rule

• Rush University Medical Center v. Sessions (Ill. 2012), the common-law rule survives the UFTA, and it operates without regard to fraud.
• Sattin v. Brooks (In re Brooks) (Bankr. D. Conn. 1998), the case that kills the “have your spouse settle it” workaround.

Cases about LLCs and charging orders

• Olmstead v. FTC (Fla. 2010), the single-member LLC case, and the statutory fix that followed.
• In re Albright (Bankr. D. Colo. 2003), bankruptcy and the single-member LLC.
• Curci Investments v. Baldwin (Cal. Ct. App. 2017), reverse veil piercing reaches past the charging order in California.

Why this matters for your plan

Reading the cases is not an academic exercise. Every one of these decisions turned on something a planner controls: when the structure was created, how much control the settlor kept, whether the governing-law choice was backed by real contacts, and whether the client told the truth on the record. We build to the way these disputes are actually litigated, because Elizabeth litigates them. To discuss how your situation maps onto this body of law, call (858) 755-6672.