Court Dismisses Montana Museum Board

HELENA, Mont.—The Montana Supreme Court has dismissed the board of the Charles M. Bair Family Museum in Martindale, Mont., saying it breached its fiduciary duties when it closed the museum in 2002, reports the New York Times.

The court said the board had not spent enough money to fully establish the museum and ordered the U.S. Bank, the trustee, to create a new board that must meet within six months.

The museum houses an eclectic collection of valuable European antiques, artworks, and Indian artifacts amassed by the Bair family. Alberta M. Bair, Charles's daughter, established the trust that financed the museum, and expressed that it was her "cherished aim and foremost desire" to open a museum in the family home before she died in 1993, leaving behind the fortune her father had made in minerals, finance, and sheep.

The case has been closely watched among nonprofits and state regulators of charities, who are often left to interpret the donors' wishes and defend them against opposition from powerful boards, reports the Times.

“It’s great news,” said the attorney general, Mike McGrath. “The Montana Supreme Court said the board does not have unfettered discretion.”

Alberta M. Bair directed the board before her death to spend whatever necessary from the trust to maintain the museum and buy property, if needed. The board argued that attendance had declined, that the house was ill-suited to be a museum, and that security and fire-protection systems were inadequate for the collection, which has increased in value by 40 percent over the last three years, to $6.7 million.

The case was brought by a community group, the Friends of the Bair Museum.