In Conover v. Conover, Van died in July 2001, leaving an estate valued at over $4 million, including $2.8 million in stocks and bonds. No. 01-24-00471-CV, 2026 Tex. App. LEXIS 1834 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] February 26, 2026, no pet.). Van’s will devised his residuary estate to his father, William Van Conover, II (“Bill”), as trustee, to be divided into equal shares and distributed in trust for Van’s daughters, Rachel and Katie Conover. Bill was appointed both executor of Van’s estate and trustee of the testamentary trusts for Rachel and Katie. By April 2002, Bill filed the probate inventory, which included documents from the estate’s federal tax return. The inventory showed the estate’s value and suspicious $1 valuations for Lagniappe Farms, Inc. and Lagniappe Interests, Inc. Bill did not establish the trusts for Rachel and Katie until 2010, nine years after Van’s death, and funded each trust with only $619,504. Bill consistently refused to provide information about the trusts to Rachel, Katie, or their mother, Debbie.

Family members, including Bill’s ex-wife and Rachel and Katie’s grandmother, warned Debbie and Rachel about Bill’s history of trust mismanagement. Rachel and Katie received trust benefits (education, living expenses) but were not given detailed information about the trusts or estate assets. Rachel turned 18 in 2009; Katie turned 18 in 2015. By 2014, Rachel’s trust was valued at approximately $1.1 million, and Katie’s at approximately $2 million. In 2015, Katie was told by Bill that her trust had $2 million and was given a credit card for expenses. After Bill’s death in 2021, Rachel became the successor trustee for her trust, and Debbie became the successor trustee for Katie’s trust.

In 2021, Rachel and Katie discovered the estate tax returns showing Van’s gross estate was over $4 million and the $1 valuations for certain entities. They could not find records showing that proceeds from estate assets were deposited into their trusts and discovered Bill had taken out at least one express credit line loan on behalf of Van’s estate in 2007.

Rachel and Katie filed claims against Bill’s estate for his breach of fiduciary duties, fraud by non-disclosure, unjust enrichment, and constructive trust. The co-executors of Bill’s estate filed a summary judgment motion based on the statute of limitations. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of the co-executors, dismissing Rachel and Katie’s claims as time-barred under the statute of limitations.

The appellants argued that the discovery rule should defer accrual of their claims until they actually discovered the alleged wrongdoing. The court held that the discovery rule is a narrow exception, only applicable when the injury is inherently undiscoverable despite due diligence. In probate proceedings, Texas courts generally refuse to apply the discovery rule because interested persons are charged with constructive notice of the probate records, creating an irrebuttable presumption of actual notice:

Reasonable diligence requires that “owners of property interests make themselves aware of relevant information available in the public record.” In probate proceedings, the reasonable diligence standard is measured against the publicly available probate records. “Persons interested in an estate admitted to probate are charged with notice of the contents of probate records.” “Constructive notice in law creates an irrebuttable presumption of actual notice.”

Id.

The court of appeals held that Rachel and Katie, as beneficiaries of testamentary trusts, were deemed “interested persons” in their father’s probate estate and thus had constructive notice of the probate inventory and records filed in 2002:

Rachel and Katie did not take directly under Van’s will. Instead, the will instructed Bill to form trusts for their benefit. The Estates Code, though, does not focus on whether the parties have an interest in the decedent’s will. It asks whether they have an interest in the decedent’s estate. An “interested person” or “person interested” includes “an heir, devisee, spouse, creditor, or any other having a property right in or claim against an estate being administered.” This Court has clarified that a “person interested in the estate” is “one who has legally ascertained pecuniary interest, real or prospective, absolute or contingent, which will be impaired, benefitted, or in some manner materially affected” by the proceeding. Rachel and Katie are “persons interested” in their father’s estate. They have a pecuniary interest that was materially affected by the probate of their father’s will. Further, Rachel and Katie have beneficial interests that flow directly from the probated will, and the will’s validity, interpretation, and administration directly affect the creation and terms of the testamentary trusts. As beneficiaries of testamentary trusts, they are the owners of the property placed in the trust, and as such, they have “property rights in or claims against” the estate.

Id. The court found that reasonable diligence would have led to discovery of any breach of fiduciary duty claims by 2015, making the discovery rule inapplicable. The court held that constructive notice of probate records creates an irrebuttable presumption of actual notice for interested persons, and that both the discovery rule and fraudulent concealment doctrines did not apply to extend the limitations period in this case. The court concluded that the appellants’ claims were time-barred because they were charged with constructive notice of the probate records upon reaching majority age, and reasonable diligence would have led to discovery of their claims within the limitations period. “Their constructive notice of the probate records creates an irrebuttable presumption they had actual notice of them when they reached eighteen.” Id. The discovery rule and fraudulent concealment doctrines did not apply to extend or toll the limitations period under the facts presented. The court affirmed summary judgment for the co-executors, holding that the claims were barred as a matter of law.