PHILADELPHIA -- Two decades ago, Tylenol magnate Henry Slack McNeil wrote his eldest son, Henry Jr., out of his will.
His son's offenses, in his father's view, included using his kids as pawns in a nasty custody battle and shunning a traditional career path. Henry Jr., known as Hank, also had a cocaine problem. It didn't help matters that Hank sent his father scathing letters accusing him of being a bad dad.Sixteen years have passed since the death of the elder McNeil, who ran McNeil Laboratories until selling it to Johnson & Johnson. Hank, now 55 years old, has kicked his drug habit and used a trust fund set up when he was a teen to build a valuable contemporary-art collection and sizable land holdings.
But old grudges die hard. Last year, Hank's mother, Lois, died and left him virtually nothing, by McNeil standards. Hank estimates his siblings got about $650 million, while his bequest was a mere $1.8 million, plus some furniture, art and an interest in the family compound in the Bahamas. The siblings' lawyer says Hank vastly overstates his mother's share of family wealth.
Hank, a balding redhead with a new wife and baby, insists he was "my mother's favorite." To try and prove it, he has poured thousands of dollars into private eyes to investigate the family. And he recently sued his sister Barbara Jordan and her husband in state court in Norristown, Pa., alleging that they manipulated his mother into significantly cutting his inheritance.
The case offers a window on a multigenerational feud that has fractured one of America's richest families. Unlike in a typical probate challenge, Hank isn't pointing to an earlier will more favorable to him in order to cast suspicion on the final will. Instead, he is suing under the more unusual theory of "tortious interference," contending the Jordans owe damages for thwarting his mother's intentions to give him a bigger share in a future will.
Not only does Barbara deny the allegations, she says in a joint statement with another brother and a sister that the siblings -- whom Hank hasn't sued -- have "no intention of going against our parents' wishes" to keep Hank away from the family fortune, estimated at $2 billion. "Our parents made some very difficult decisions in holding him accountable for his actions," they say.
Hank himself cut his own estranged adult children out of his will a few years ago. Their offense: trying to block Hank's request to withdraw $28 million from a trust fund now worth $72 million for a land-reclamation project. (Hank later sued the trustees managing his money after they offered a mere $10 million. The trustees sued back, and a decision in the case is pending in Delaware state court.)
Hank's children, who decline to comment, say in court papers that all Hank has to show for the millions he's already drained from the trust is a "record of business failures," including shuttered art galleries in New York and Philadelphia. They say they didn't know they were co-beneficiaries of the trust until the trustees told them a few years ago.
They also claim in deposition transcripts that Hank abused them physically and psychologically, took drugs while he had custody of them and barely provided for them. In one deposition, Hank's son Justin blames his father for his own substance abuse, which he says he's finally licked. He says he and his sister "were ostracized because Hank was disowned." In an interview, Hank denies abusing or neglecting them. He adds that he's reinstating them in his will: Each may collect a Jackson Pollock drawing.
The family infighting, with armies of lawyers and handlers on all sides, would no doubt have given the elder McNeil a migraine.
He followed his father and his father's father into the family pharmaceutical business. Under his leadership it introduced the first Tylenol product, a liquid pain reliever for kids. In 1959, he sold McNeil Labs to J&J for stock then valued at around $33 million.
When he put some stock in trust for his children, he cautioned them in a letter that they would appreciate it "only when you can match it with your own success -- financially, professionally, philanthropically or by the pride of raising a family as fine as mine."
Hickory Farm, the McNeils' estate in historic Plymouth Meeting outside Philadelphia, was filled with antiques and Lois's collection of exotic orchids. Generous art patrons, Henry and Lois amassed a world-renowned collection of American Chippendale and Queen Anne furniture. They flew their own plane to the Bahamas.
Henry had high hopes for his offspring. "He really wanted his sons to be like the way he and his brother were to Pappy," says Jack O'Brien, a former McNeil executive and now an outside director of Claneil Enterprises, the family holding company. But, O'Brien contends, "Hank didn't want to work. Hank wanted to play."
Hank briefly attended the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton business school and worked in marketing research atMerck & Co. but dropped both endeavors. His marriage to a woman he met in college soon unraveled. By then, he had two children, who initially lived with his ex-wife. Though Hank later gained custody, they continued fighting over the kids, with Hank's parents often taking his ex-wife's side.
In 1975, Hank's father took the first step to cut him off. He put much of his wealth into Claneil, a company name derived from the Scottish "clan McNeil." Hank's siblings were allowed to buy into Claneil, but not Hank. The father wrote his firstborn out of his will entirely in 1979.
Ostracized, Hank started his descent into cocaine addiction. Soon, his kids turned against him.
In 1981, when Justin was 14, he asked to live with his mother. Hank's daughter Cameron recently testified at trial in the trust case that Hank was so mad about losing Justin to his ex-wife that "Hank . . . sat me down and told me he wasn't going to leave Justin any money." Hank acknowledges making the statement in an emotional moment but says he was hurt that Justin had criticized him in court. Cameron later moved out herself.
Despite his growing isolation, Hank says he had "no idea" his own father would disinherit him. He says his father had suggested a conciliatory lunch three days before he died of a heart attack in 1983.
Barbara, the second-oldest, stepped into the vacuum to help run the family holding company. Hank alleges in his lawsuit that she removed pictures of him and his children from his mother's house and disparaged his accomplishments, even after he checked himself into a drug rehabilitation program in 1986 and got straightened out. Barbara, now 54, says in a letter to The Wall Street Journal that Hank rejected her attempts to "reach out."
Brother Robert, too, had problems with Barbara. He criticized her in a letter in 1997 for her "need to control everything," warning her: "Your attempt to wear Dad's pants is failing miserably." Robert now says he regrets those words and has since realized Barbara has been an unselfish caregiver to his mother and others.
Hank and Barbara never made up, but Hank says in a deposition that he thought his other siblings had encouraged Lois to put him in her will. He says he even went to the Bahamas with his mother and she "had me sit at the head of the table" one recent Christmas Eve.
His hopes were dashed when Lois's will was read. Not only was his inheritance relatively tiny, but he says his siblings closed ranks against him.
He says they had the minister omit mention of him at her memorial service. (William Hangley, a lawyer for the siblings, says Hank was late to a meeting to plan the service.) Then Mac, a Norwich terrier he had given his mother, was put to sleep. (Mac was put under because he kept biting people, says Hangley.)
This March, Hank notified Barbara that he planned to sue. Soon, attorneys for the estate sent him a letter setting limits on Hank's use of the Bahamas compound. "The boat is owned by Barrie and Marjie and may not be used by Hank at any time. . . . The food in the freezer belongs to Barrie and Marjie," it says, using his sisters' nicknames.
In his suit filed against Barbara and her husband, Henry Jordan, in May, Hank contends that they took advantage of Lois's failing health to control her. He also says lawyers for the Jordans and Claneil drafted the will in such a confusing way that she wouldn't have realized Hank wasn't getting an equal share.
Barbara says in her letter to the Journal that she and her husband "treated mom with extraordinary love and care." Moreover, the siblings say in their statement that it is Hank who alienates "everyone who stands in his way."
But Hank insists he's the victim. "What in God's name is it about this family," he asks, "that's so unforgiving?"