Peace in our time

Well, not fully. But the Bensons are halfway there.

Three days before Saints and Pelicans owner Tom Benson was scheduled to be privately questioned by his estranged daughter Renee’s attorneys, he and Renee reached a settlement Friday afternoon in their year-old battle over control of a family trust fund in Texas, according to an attorney in the case.

Terms of the settlement are confidential, said Bennett Stahl, a San Antonio attorney who represented Renee Benson in the dispute. But he said the agreement renders a scheduled Feb. 1 trial moot.

The trust fund dispute is separate from the controversy over the sports teams succession but getting this half settled at least suggests that the time of uncertainty is coming to an end.  At the same time, though, it suggests that Team Rita-Renee might have a stronger hand than people are giving them credit for.  Look how they bullied their way into this settlement. 

Friday’s settlement came a little more than a month after Benson offered to resign as the trust’s steward as long as a neutral party was appointed to that role. It also came after Hardberger and Bayern issued a report to Rickhoff saying they did not believe the trust owed Benson any money.

Rickhoff had recently ordered Tom Benson to face questioning by Renee Benson’s attorneys in San Antonio. The questioning originally was supposed to have started by Thursday of this week, but that was postponed to Monday.

Friday’s agreement makes Monday’s deposition unnecessary.

Benson’s side objected to his being questioned by his daughter’s attorneys, and mediation talks didn’t begin until shortly before Rickhoff handed down his order.

Even though a judge has already determined that Benson is "mentally competent" to run his affairs, he doesn't actually want to have to put that... um.. competence on display during court proceedings.  As long as Team Rita can threaten to make that happen, they've got a fighting chance.

Meanwhile, for those of you still looking to take down Bronze Tom, you may now direct your lobbying efforts toward Former Governor Meemaw.  

Tell us about that awful pookah

It was a "grueling" day in court.

At one point during a break in her testimony, Renee Benson emerged from the courtroom, only to be quickly ushered by her daughter and a lawyer into a restroom generally reserved for the courthouse’s jury pool. She returned to the witness stand after a few minutes.

It wasn’t clear if she was emotionally upset or was suffering from some ailment.

When she finally finished testifying about 2:55 p.m., Renee declared, “I’m done,” to no one in particular as she walked back into the courtroom to watch her daughter take the stand.

Doctor, are we sure we've got the right patient?

Later, some video of the testimony was released.

Hollywood South movie pitch

It's a reboot of "Harvey" only, instead of Jimmy Stewart, we get Tom Benson to star as Elwood Dowd. Renee Benson and Rita Leblanc are Vita and Myrtle Mae.

Tom Benson’s daughter and grandchildren were prepared to take the witness stand Tuesday and argue that their 87-year-old family patriarch is too enfeebled to make decisions about his business empire anymore.

Renee Benson and her children, Ryan and Rita LeBlanc, have not been looking forward to this day, but they are doing what they feel is in the best interest of their family, said their lawyer, Randy Smith.

“They’ve been involved in these businesses since they were teenagers. ... The whole situation is hard,” Smith told reporters Tuesday morning, at the beginning of the second day of Benson’s mental competency trial. “I think a lot of people have gone through seeing a loved one who gets older and needs to be properly protected.”

Renee Benson spent much of the morning session Tuesday on the witness stand. After emerging for a break during a break in her testimony, her daughter and a lawyer quickly ushered her into a restroom generally reserved for the courthouse’s jury pool instead of one that was being used by the general public, including the trial’s participants.

Gayle, of course, is the 8 foot rabbit only Tom can see. 

Fun fact of the day

I know we're talking about the Texas wing of the Benson empire here but still... Renee Benson's restaurant is called, "Uptown White" 

Entangled in a legal battle with her father, Renee Benson — the daughter of New Orleans Saints and Pelicans owner Tom Benson — has closed a restaurant she owned outside of San Antonio.

A note on the Facebook page for Renee Benson’s Uptown Blanco Restaurant said it would be “temporarily closed for maintenance and repairs” for the next few months, beginning Monday. It added that the 7-year-old restaurant hoped to reopen in the future.