The Court of Appeals ruled that the attorneys’ fees provision of the of the Elder Abuse Act - CA., does not authorize the award of trustee fees as costs.
The court overturned an award of more than $500,000 in fees to the trustee of the Lawson Family Trust for services rendered in connection with a challenge to the manner in which Cheryl Lawson obtained her elderly parents’ signatures on a quitclaim deed that transferred an undivided one-half interest in a Santa Barbara residence to her.
The court also overturned the remainder of the judgment, awarding the trust and the parents’ conservator nearly $700,000 in damages and awarding their attorneys more than $1 million in fees, on the ground that the trial judge had abused his discretion by denying Cheryl Lawson a continuance.
The jurist wrote:
“The fees here have raised the shameful specter of the horrendous case of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce in Charles Dickens’s Bleak House, where because of protracted delays...the corpus of the estates were depleted by court costs and legal fees.”
The case is Sanders v. Lawson, B185999
Full Article and Source:
Trustees’ Fees Not Recoverable Under Elder Abuse Act
See also:
Bleak House by Charles Dickens
The court overturned an award of more than $500,000 in fees to the trustee of the Lawson Family Trust for services rendered in connection with a challenge to the manner in which Cheryl Lawson obtained her elderly parents’ signatures on a quitclaim deed that transferred an undivided one-half interest in a Santa Barbara residence to her.
The court also overturned the remainder of the judgment, awarding the trust and the parents’ conservator nearly $700,000 in damages and awarding their attorneys more than $1 million in fees, on the ground that the trial judge had abused his discretion by denying Cheryl Lawson a continuance.
The jurist wrote:
“The fees here have raised the shameful specter of the horrendous case of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce in Charles Dickens’s Bleak House, where because of protracted delays...the corpus of the estates were depleted by court costs and legal fees.”
The case is Sanders v. Lawson, B185999
Full Article and Source:
Trustees’ Fees Not Recoverable Under Elder Abuse Act
See also:
Bleak House by Charles Dickens
"The corpus of the estates were depleted by court costs and legal fees.”
ReplyDeleteNothing much has changed since Dickens wrote Bleak House in the 19th Century, except...there are now too many lawyers, and too many of them without ethics or conscience. With the powers that be doing nothing to get rid of the bad ones, the reputation of the organized Bar is now lower than...well, you know the rest of that obscenity!
I applaud this decision!
ReplyDeleteThis is one example of the strategy used in the bleeding of an estate.
What about the other probate cases that are riddled with fraud?
Many cases die on the vine; the cases that never make it to or through the obstacle course of the court system due to many factors, including outrageous attorney fees, court costs and related expenses.
The probate racket by design is a racket for lazy, unscrupulous, greedy opportunists.
The unethical, greedy probate players and those individuals with criminal minds, watched and learned over time how to bleed the esate; how to take advantage of an overwhelmed system.
I noticed this excellent blog is growing with horror story after horror story; glaring examples of the injustices that are waiting for our parents; waiting for us.
Are we and our intended heirs ready for this racket when our day comes?