Although one living partner in a joint venture with a deceased partner lost a probate cross-petition battle regarding distribution of shares from the joint venture, living/nonprevailing partner was successful in resisting the subsequent costs award in favor of the prevailing parties.
Reason? It was untimely filed.
As explained in Friedman v. Murphy, Case No. B237967 (2d Dist., Div. 8 Nov. 14, 2012) (unpublished), the probate court’s notice of ruling on losing partner’s cross-petition (under Probate Code section 850, itself an appealable order), given through the court clerk, was a sufficient trigger to start the running of the 15-day deadline to file a costs memorandum under the California Rules of Court. The Probate Code does not require a formal judgment to trigger the deadline, such that the notice of ruling by the court clerk sufficed as an order. Prevailing parties filed past the deadline, so they were out of luck in this particular case.