The Other Barnes Lawsuit

Montgomery County has now filed its Orphans' Court petition to block the Barnes's move to Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Bulletin has the story. It sounds like a much narrower suit than the one filed by the Friends of the Barnes group a couple of weeks ago: "The county contends that while there may have been a legitimate worry about the collection's inability to afford to stay put, circumstances have changed for the better. Thus Barnes' wish, specified in an official trust, to leave the Barnes in its current location should be honored, the petition said. 'It is axiomatic that if conditions dictate diverting from the language of a trust or the intent of the grantor when financial circumstances will no longer allow the carrying out of a charitable trust, when circumstances again change in such manner to allow the grantor's intent to be carried out, the language of the trust should be followed and the trustee has the obligation to follow a course in accord with the grantor's wishes,' the county argued."