The heirs to the nation's largest ladder company are feuding over profits from the company's 1997 sale.

The Werner Co., which makes ladders and other climbing equipment, was founded in 1922 by Richard D. Werner. Until 1997 the Sugar Grove Township company was entirely a family affair, with Werner's descendants receiving shares of company stock.

Trouble began brewing for the clan in 1996 when a small group of heirs represented by the Anne Werner Estate and the Elizabeth Werner Trust sought to reduce their holdings in the company by selling back stock at $1,000 a share.

Months after the deal went through, the remaining Werner family members sold the company to Investcorp for $123 million -- or nearly $2,500 per share.

The estates of Elizabeth and Anne Werner filed suit claiming that relatives cheated them out of the windfall by failing to inform them of the pending sale.

Their initial claim was thrown out by a federal judge on the grounds that there was no evidence that they had been misled.

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday upheld most of the lower court decisions, but said it would allow the Elizabeth and Anne Werner estates to refile a section of their claim in district court because of the late discovery of some new evidence.

That new evidence is a set of documents purporting to be notes from a 1996 company meeting, during which Werner executives talked about a plan to sell the company.

The court ruled that Elizabeth and Anne Werner deserved a chance to refile because they had never had the option to access those documents before the case was dismissed by a lower court.