COLUMBIA (WACH, AP) -- The family of the late James Brown was in court Tuesday hoping to get a favorable ruling from South Carolina's Supreme Court regarding a previous settlement.
This latest hearing is between trustees who say they were unjustly removed from James Brown's charitable organization and state attorneys who brokered a complex settlement.
The former trustees sued over the settlement, arguing that then-South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster didn't have the authority to push it through and that they were removed because of their opposition.
The settlement made by McMaster gave just about half of Brown's assets to a charitable trust, some to Brown's widow and the rest to his children.
“We took our termination rights of the copyrights of all of his royalties and we gave half of what we would get, that would be me, my brothers and sisters and Tomi Rae Hynie. Where had we not done that, the charitable trust would not have a dime by 2015,” says Deanna Brown-Thomas, President James Brown Family Foundation.
Thomas says the charitable trust was set up to allow students from Georgia and South Carolina to get free education through scholarships from the late James Brown.
James Brown died in 2006 on Christmas Day.
(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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