Details of Rosa Parks estate settlement now public

DETROIT (AP) -- Details are out on the secret legal agreement meant to settle a dispute over civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks' estate. A confidential seven-page document detailing the deal was included in a Jan. 18 filing with the Michigan Supreme Court, making it public, the Detroit Free Press reported recently. The deal gives Parks' longtime friend Elaine Steele and an institute that Parks and Steele created together 80 percent of the estate. Parks' 15 nieces and nephews receive 20 percent. The multimillion dollar estate includes proceeds from the sale of Parks' possessions and royalties from licensing her name. Parks was arrested in 1955 for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Ala., bus to a white man, bringing the young the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to prominence in the fight to desegregate the transit system. Parks later moved to Detroit and was a longtime aide to U.S. Rep. John Conyers, D-Detroit. She died in 2005 at age 92. Steele and the institute previously had lost their share of the estate because of a breach of confidentiality. The document was filed as part of an appeal of a court order reinstating her as co-executor. The document was filed by Alan May, a lawyer representing two men who had been appointed as fiduciaries for the estate after Parks' nieces and nephews challenged her will. May attached the agreement to a legal brief that urged the Supreme Court to reconsider its Dec. 29 decision ordering a judge to put Steele and retired 36th District Judge Adam Shakoor back in charge of the estate, in keeping with Parks' wishes. "The Supreme Court released the settlement agreement, I didn't," May told the newspaper. He said that the high court's staff had assured him his filing would be kept confidential. "I believed I was filing a sealed document," May said. May earlier complained in court that lawyer Steven Cohen, who represented Steele and the institute, had publicly divulging part of the document, violating a confidentiality agreement. That complaint led Wayne County Probate Court Judge Freddie Burton to cut Steele and the institute out of the estate. The Supreme Court's December decision reversed that action. Cohen said May was careless. "Alan May and his clients used a phony breach of confidentiality to torture my clients," Cohen said. "I wonder whether Judge Burton will assess any sanctions against Mr. May for doing precisely what he falsely accused me of doing." Published: Tue, Feb 7, 2012