

The Redstone family feud isn’t over just yet.
A settlement announced last week would resolve the bitter fight between Viacom Inc. chief executive Philippe Dauman and Shari Redstone for control of the media empire and fortune held by her father, 93-year-old Sumner Redstone.
But Sumner Redstone’s granddaughter, 34-year-old Keryn Redstone, wasn’t a party to the deal, and she wonders why Dauman gave up the fight. She will have her own day in court Friday in Norfolk County Probate and Family Court in Canton.
Judge George Phelan agreed to hear her request to be provided with a full, unredacted copy of the settlement agreement with Dauman. She also asked the court to order her grandfather to undergo a mental examination to determine if he was incompetent or subject to undue influence when he recently made a series of changes to the trust that will govern his assets upon his death.
“Keryn Redstone seeks these documents so that she can review for herself whether the settlement adequately protects Sumner Redstone and the trust beneficiaries or whether it is a back-room deal between Shari Redstone and others seeking to benefit from Redstone’s media empire,’’ Keryn Redstone’s attorney, Pierce O’Donnell, said in a statement. “It has always been Keryn’s top priority in this case to make sure that Sumner Redstone’s interests and wishes are protected, and the hearings on Friday are a part of this.’’
Elizabeth Burnett, an attorney for Shari Redstone, declined to comment on Keryn’s court requests.
Keryn Redstone is the daughter of Brent Redstone, who has been estranged from his father since a 2006 lawsuit over his role in the family business. She is one of the few Redstone family members who stand to inherit her grandfather’s multibillion-dollar media empire.
Sumner Redstone set up a trust to manage his ownership of National Amusements Inc. The Norwood-based theater chain and holding company controls 80 percent of the voting stock in Viacom and CBS Inc. and receives tens of millions of dollars annually in dividends from the two companies.
His five grandchildren are the beneficiaries of that trust; meanwhile Shari Redstone is chief executive of National Amusements and one of seven trustees who will oversee his estate if her father dies or becomes incapacitated.
Keryn Redstone has portrayed herself in legal filings as the only family member concerned more with her grandfather’s well-being than his money, saying she affectionately called him “Grumpy’’ and visited him frequently. However, Keryn Redstone has said she observed her grandfather’s mental health decline precipitously, beginning last year. Her once-warm relationship with him became distant, she testified, as Sumner became increasingly confused and irritable. Earlier this year, Keryn Redstone supported a former girlfriend of her grandfather’s, who sued after Sumner Redstone removed her as his health care proxy.
In May, Redstone replaced Dauman and George Abrams, a longtime friend and lawyer, as trustees at National Amusements. Redstone also removed Dauman and Abrams from Viacom’s board. National Amusements, meanwhile, recently changed Viacom’s bylaws to make it harder for the company to sell off Paramount Studios, a move favored by Dauman but apparently opposed by Redstone.
Dauman and Abrams sued the mogul and his daughter in Norfolk County to block their removal from the trust. They said Shari Redstone, not Sumner Redstone, was the one behind the changes, isolating and manipulating her father for her own benefit.
But the two longtime Redstone lieutenants have now agreed to end three months of legal rancor and withdraw their accusations. Under the settlement, Dauman resigned as Viacom’s chief executive, taking a $72 million golden parachute payout; five board members nominated by Shari Redstone, the company’s vice chairwoman, will take their seats immediately. Dauman will serve as the nonexecutive chairman until mid-September.
The deal leaves Keryn Redstone trying to find her footing amid rapidly shifting legal sands. Her lawyers have also requested a copy of the secret National Amusements trust document, perhaps to see whether its terms have been altered to reduce or eliminate her inheritance.
Through her attorneys, she has accused her aunt Shari of conspiring for years to seize control of Sumner Redstone’s assets, including by paying one of his nurses to work as her spy, by faking his signature on legal documents by placing a pen in his hand and moving the paper underneath it, by tricking him into writing Keryn Redstone out of some of his trusts, and even by pushing for a do-not-resuscitate order against his wishes.
“Shari has blatantly seized every aspect of her father’s life,’’ O’Donnell said at an earlier court hearing. “She has an unquenchable thirst for power . . . [This was] a long-planned quest to replace her father when he dies and wield awesome power in the media world.’’
Redstone’s camp emphatically denied the accusations, calling it “a multilayer theory of conjecture and conspiracy.’’
Dan Adams can be reached at daniel.adams@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @Dan_Adams86.



