A new suit may give estate planners ideas about how to prepare for the possibility that a business owner client will sell the business.
ReliaStar Life Insurance Co. has started an interpleader action against the widow of Eugene Fontanini, the former president of Capitol Wholesale Meats, a sausage maker that was acquired by Hormel for $425 million in 2017.
Eugene Fontanini bought a $5 million term life policy from ReliaStar in 2010. He died of hemorrhagic pulmonary edema in 2023 at 71.
ReliaStar told the U.S. District Court in Chicago in a complaint filed June 26 that it's not sure how to distribute the policy proceeds. It wants to deposit the benefits with the court.
The defendants are Capitol Wholesale Meats; Eugene Fontanini's widow, JoAnne Fontanini, as the personal representative of her husband's estate; and the JoAnne Fontanini Irrevocable Grantor Trust.
Representatives for ReliaStar and JoAnne Fontanini could not immediately be reached for comment.
Capitol Wholesale Meats: Oriano and Jennie Fontanini, immigrants from Lucca, Italy, started the meat company in Chicago in 1960.
