Bushey v. Jensen CA1/3

── Bushey v. Jensen CA1/3 ── Court: California Court of Appeal Date: May 28, 2026 Category: General Filed 5/28/26 Bushey v. Jensen CA1/3 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115. IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA FIRST APPELLATE DISTRICT DIVISION THREE CARRIE BUSHEY, as Trustee, etc., Plaintiff and Respondent, A170210 v. MICHAEL J. JENSEN, (Mendocino County Super. Ct. No. 22PR00155) Defendant and Appellant. The parties have filed three petitions in this matter. First, plaintiff Carrie Bushey filed a petition to confirm her and defendant Michael J. Jensen’s mother’s trust. Jensen opposed the petition, but the court concluded the trust was valid. Jensen then filed his own petition, asserting in part that his mother’s trust had been revoked prior to her death. The court rejected this allegation based on its prior ruling validating the trust and instructed Jensen to file an amended petition omitting such claims. However, Jensen’s amended petition contained similar assertions. In response, Bushey filed the current petition at issue: a petition to enforce the trust’s no contest clause. The court granted this petition, and Jensen appealed. On appeal, Jensen contends the trial court erred by finding that he contested the trust, and such contest lacked probable cause. We disagree and affirm the order. 1  BACKGROUND Factual Background Bushey’s and Jensen’s mother, Gerri Dutton, created the Gerri Dutton Family Trust (Trust), dated March 29, 2019. The Trust distributed Dutton’s assets equally between her three children, apart from a single property gifted to her granddaughter. The Trust also contained a no contest clause, which provided in relevant part: “If any beneficiary under a trust created by this document shall . . . contest in any court the validity of any trust created by this document . . . or shall seek to obtain an adjudication in any proceeding in any court that this trust or any of its dispositive provisions are void, or otherwise seek to void, nullify, or set aside the trust or any of its provisions, then the right of that person to take any interest given to him or her by this document shall be determined as it would have been determined had the person predeceased the execution of this declaration of trust without surviving issue.” On December 24, 2019, Dutton executed a “First Amendment to the Trust” (First Amendment). That amendment still directed a single property to be gifted to her granddaughter, but the remaining property was to be distributed exclusively to Jensen. The First Amendment was prepared and executed with a different law firm than the one that prepared the Trust. At that same time, Dutton appointed Jensen as her power of attorney. Approximately two weeks later, on January 8, 2020, Dutton executed a revocation of the First Amendment after the attorney that prepared the Trust explained the amendment’s legal effect to her. On August 13, 2020, Dutton executed a “Notice of Revocation” of the Trust (August Revocation). That revocation stated that Dutton (1) “exercise[d] her power to revoke, in its entirety, the [Trust],” (2) “assigned 2 all right, title, and interest in certain of the trust property to [Jensen],” and (3) directed the trustee “to immediately transfer title” to such assets to Jense