Trustee Did Not Surmount Deferential Abuse of Discretion Standard Applicable to Fee Denial.
Crookshanks v. Crookshanks, Case No. B231580 (2d Dist., Div. 3 Mar. 26, 2012) (unpublished) is a sad probate case where a trustee was denied some “extraordinary” attorney’s fee requests for administering a trust. Instead, the trial court determined that trustee’s attornehy’s fees were expended for her personal benefit, rather than for a trust advantage. Given some egregious facts in the record that were construed against her, the appellate court affirmed the fee denial, noting that an attorney addressing an order committed to the lower court’s discretion “is confronted with more than a daunting task” given that it implies a decision was made capriciously or with whimsical thinking. (Estate of Gilkison, 65 Cal.App.4th 1443, 1448-1449 (1998).) Trustee, who married trustor a week or so before he passed away and was found to have mismanaged trust assets, could not hurdle this formidible standard given the state of the record.