A year ago an Austin man had to watch his wife die of cancer. He says instead of getting to grieve properly he's had to spend the last few months battling her bank. A bank he claims is openly defying a court order.
Talk to Chris Weaver about his wife Maggie and watch his eyes light up.
"She loved being the life of the party and just being involved in life, she lived bigger, bigger than you can ever imagine," said Weaver.
Maggie also had big dreams. Shortly after she and Chris married in 2004, she went to law school and started her own family law firm.
"She loved in helping people solve problems," said Weaver.
But Maggie couldn't solve her biggest problem -- colon cancer.
"She prioritized life first, cancer second, until some point in time we didn't have the choice anymore, and the day the doctors told her the day the doctors told her she had to shut her law firm down was probably the hardest day we've been through in a long time," said Weaver, as he held back tears.
Maggie died in May of 2009. As he grieved, Chris now faced the difficult task of closing out his wife's estate. Almost a year after her death, he took the court order naming him administrator of her estate to this Chase Bank in Northwest Austin to close out her two business accounts. He says before going in he cried in the parking lot for an hour.
"This was the end of her dream, this was, this was it, it was all over after this," said Weaver.
Chris went in, talked to a female employee at chase who told him she could help him with one account but not the other -- without a court order. Chris produced this court order from Travis County Probate Court. He says the bank employee still wasn't satisfied, so he suggested she just simply transfer the funds from the one account to other, as he and his wife had done every weekend.
"At which time she very calmly said you are conspiring to commit fraud, I'm locking the account right now," said Weaver.
Chris says he was told he would also need a Letter of Instruction from the Texas Bar Association. He says the Bar Association informed his attorney such a form doesn't exist and Chase could not produce one.
"It is insane, it is insane that they are doing this, and I think nobody has ever called them on this practice, I refuse to give up," said Weaver.
The account in question is only for $2,000. But it's an account that holds clients' money in trust until the legal services are performed. The probate judge was satisfied that all those legal services were rendered, and that's why he ordered the money released to Chris. A Houston based spokesman for Chase says the bank is looking into the matter.
