Trial Court Did Not Abuse Discretion In Finding Trust Liable For 100% of Referee’s Fees.
Probate Code section 2642(b) and California Rules of Court, rule 7.702 allow attorneys who render legal services to a guardian or estate (or both) to file a petition for extraordinary compensation, if certain substantiation is met and the attorneys show that the case was complex/difficult and/or there were benefits to the estate.
These provisions were in play where both a referee and appellate court told attorneys for litigants in a guardianship dispute, enough is enough already.
Guardianship of Hughes, Case No. A130802 (1st Dist., Div. 3 Mar. 6, 2013) (unpublished) is a situation where well-known attorneys already paid $3 million in a guardianship dispute then sought another $3 million for extraordinary compensation –requests a referee denied.
You can probably guess what happened–yep, affirmed on appeal. And the reason was that the referee and trial court believed the firms had already been paid enough. Also, the trial court’s reallocating the referee’s recommendation on who should bear his expenses (trust should pay 60%/other parties 40%) to trust paying 100% was no abuse of discretion, given that the prevailing parties (trust-affiliated) unnecessarily increased the time and resources required to hear petitioners’ petition.