On 30th October 2026, Judge Patricia A. Winston of the Superior Court of the State of Delaware (Complex Commercial Litigation Division) issued a Memorandum Opinion in The Estate of Ewell E. Long v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. (Long), granting the defendants’ motion to dismiss the amended complaint in its entirety.
The case centred on a life insurance policy procured in April 2007 on the life of Florida resident Ewell E. Long, allegedly as part of a stranger-originated life insurance (STOLI) scheme. The policy was applied for by The Ewell E. Long Irrevocable Trust, with Mr. Long’s wife as beneficiary. According to the complaint, a non-party to the case, Ocean Gate, funded the first-year premium, directly or indirectly. Mr. Long’s wife sold her beneficial interest in the trust to Ocean Gate for $210,000 under a Successor Beneficiary Agreement dated April 23, 2007.
After a 2013 transfer of the trust’s beneficial interest to another investor, Perlino FL, L.P., a Florida limited partnership with its principal place of business in Texas, acquired the policy in June 2020. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., a national bank with its main office in South Dakota, served as Perlino’s securities intermediary and became the policy’s owner and beneficiary on the insurer’s books. To effect that change, Wells Fargo executed a change of owner and beneficiary form in Delaware. Jade Mountain Partners LLC, a Delaware LLC based in New York and one of the defendants, provided investment management services to Perlino, including maintaining the policy files.
After Long died in January 2022, Wells Fargo received the policy’s death benefit in March 2022 and credited the funds to Perlino’s account. Wells Fargo took both steps in Minnesota.
In March 2025, Long’s estate, represented by his widow, filed suit seeking recovery of the death benefit under 18 Del. C. § 2704(b), Delaware’s insurable interest statute. The amended complaint asserted a statutory claim against Wells Fargo and Perlino for recovery of the proceeds (Count I), as well as claims for civil conspiracy to wager on human life (Count II) and aiding and abetting a wager on human life (Count III) against Wells Fargo, Perlino, and Jade Mountain.
The defendants moved to dismiss the claim, and Judge Winston granted the motion in its entirety. The court held that it lacked personal jurisdiction over Wells Fargo and Perlino under 10 Del. C. § 3104(c), Delaware’s long-arm statute, which defines when a Delaware court may exercise personal jurisdiction over a non-resident under the “conspiracy theory” of jurisdiction.
The court explained that one source of a § 2704(b) claim is the procurement of a policy that lacks an insurable interest, and that the collection of the death benefit is arguably another. Wells Fargo and Perlino had not taken part in the procurement, which took place thirteen years before they acquired the policy, and Wells Fargo collected the death benefit in Minnesota. The court therefore determined that Wells Fargo’s execution of the form in Delaware was not a “source” of the § 2704(b) claim and did not “have a sufficient nexus to the Section 2704(b) claim.” It rejected the estate’s argument that a “but-for” connection was enough, because signing the form did not itself effect the collection of the death benefit. Subsection (c)(3) failed for a further reason: the estate alleged no tortious injury in Delaware. A § 2704(b) claim is not based on a breach of any duty owed to the estate, and any injury the estate suffered likely would have been felt in Florida. The court also rejected general jurisdiction under § 3104(c)(4), because the estate did not argue that either foreign defendant was “essentially at home” in Delaware under Daimler AG v. Bauman.
The court also held that the conspiracy theory of jurisdiction failed. The complaint offered no specific factual evidence, only conclusory allegations and allegations made on information and belief, that Wells Fargo or Perlino knew the policy was a STOLI policy, and so an illegal wager on human life, when they acquired it in 2020 in what appeared to be an arm’s-length transaction.
Regarding the remaining secondary liability claims against Jade Mountain, the court granted dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6). Citing the Delaware Supreme Court’s February 2026 decision in GWG DLP Master Trust v. Estate of Frank, 361 A.3d 31 (Del. 2026) (Frank), the court explained that an estate’s right to recover a STOLI death benefit did not exist at common law and is a creature of statute under 18 Del. C. § 2704(b).
The court emphasized that § 2704(b) defines its scope precisely, creating a remedy only against “the beneficiary, assignee or other payee” who is “the person so receiving” the benefits from the insurer. Jade Mountain never received the death benefit. Drawing an analogy to the Court of Chancery’s ruling in Edgewater Growth Capital Partners, L.P. v. H.I.G. Cap., Inc., which rejected implied secondary liability under the Delaware Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act, the court declined to imply claims for civil conspiracy or aiding and abetting against non-recipients such as Jade Mountain. As the Edgewater court put it, “[t]he General Assembly obviously could have explicitly provided for liability for aiding and abetting a fraudulent transfer, but it did not.” The court also rejected the estate’s attempt to recover damages for dignitary and emotional harm and invasion of privacy and stated that any expansion of liability is a matter for the General Assembly.
The court acknowledged but did not follow a June 2026 bench ruling in Estate of Oristano v. Westgate Delaware, LLC, in which another Delaware Superior Court judge allowed a STOLI conspiracy claim to proceed, noting that Oristano did not squarely address whether such claims exist and did not consider Frank.
As a result of the Memorandum Opinion, all claims against ‘foreign defendants’ Wells Fargo and Perlino were dismissed under Rule 12(b)(2) without prejudice to the estate’s right to assert them in a court of competent jurisdiction, whilst the claims for civil conspiracy and aiding and abetting against Jade Mountain were dismissed under Rule 12(b)(6) with prejudice.
