Koch vs. Koch Battle of the 1990s: Part 1, The Will

I want to thank Bob Cox for inspiring me to write these posts. Cox was a journal reporter for the Wichita Eagle in the 1990's who covered the Koch vs. Koch trial. Without his excellent journalism these posts would not be possible. Sources are down at the bottom.

As you may know by now I am pretty interested in the Koch brothers. I talked about their historical net worth here and a family history here.  I personally think that the Koch family  is one of the most interesting families of all time given their wealth and family feuds.  When I was doing research I learned of the court case Koch vs. Koch and think it would be pretty interesting if someone published all the transcripts of the case since it went on for so long. However, I looked up the cost for transcripts and they start at $3 per page.

In doing some research through Newsbank I found some interesting articles about the Koch brothers from the 1990’s. The 90’s got off to a rough start when William Koch challenged his mother’s will. Mary Koch (mother of Charles, David, William, and Freddy) had an estate of $10 million when she died on December 21, 1990 from a stroke she had the day before. Keep in mind that during this same time Charles and David were each worth $1.8 billion. Mary had suffered a stroke a year before and entered Wesley Medical Center for a checkup.  The will Mary left $150,000 each to the Wichita Center for Arts, and Wellesley College in Massachusetts. In addition to this she left $100,000 each to Wichita Collegiate School and Pembroke Hill in Kansas City, Missouri. Mary attended Wellesley College and majored in English and French. Mary met her husband Fred at a polo match after Fred had come back from Moscow on business.  They got married one month after they met. On their seven month honeymoon to South America Mary could only bring one piece of luggage on a train. She had a trousseau (bride out fit) in the luggage and was worried about it. Fred Koch promised Mary that she should would not have to worry because he would buy her ten trousseaus. Once they took off on the train and there was a little charter plane following them. Fred told Mary that it was the plane that was carrying Mary’s trousseau. She thought he was a keeper. 

In the last years of her life David Koch would frequently visit his mother in east Wichita since he worked in New York. She was always looking out for her boys as in one visit in 1989 David brought a girlfriend over and his mother really seemed to like her and she asked why David didn’t marry her. David as I have mentioned in this post was known for his playboy bachelor days in the 1980’s where often had three dates per day.

Mary’s will had stated that she would disinherit the sons if they have a pending lawsuit against their brothers (disinheritance clause). David said that he believed it was an ingenious idea since Mary knew money would make more of an impression on William and Freddy. William and his older brother Freddy tried to contest this. Mary’s will went through what is known as the probate process. In the probate process the will is open and can be seen as a public document by anyone.

Mary in her older age suffered from Alzheimer’s and Mary told psychologist Charles Schalon in October 1989 that she had a hard time remembering things. Mary Koch was 82 when this occurred. Despite all this Mary was able to understand her will (she had her will redone in January 1989). Mary had hoped that the will would prevent her sons from fighting however this was not the case. The fighting between the brothers got so bad that in 1982 she suggested that she didn’t want to host Christmas parties with all four sons at one time. Instead she suggested the Fred and Bill visit for Thanksgiving while Charles and David visit for Christmas. William even filled a lawsuit against his own mother claiming that he, Mary, Charles, and David all had an oral agreement to direct how part of $300,000 in annual contributions from Mary’s trust would be disbursed. 

On April 2, 1993 a Kansas Court of Appeals in Sedgwick County under Judge Hal Malone ruled that this disinheritance clause was valid. William and Freddy were disinherited from Mary’s estate as a result.  Mary Koch really did care about her boys and tried to bring peace to the family, however other family members had different ideas. 

Sources