The Fee Request Correctly Denied Because Trustee Breached The Trust, Sought To Recover Impermissible Fees Defending Her Removal, And Were Unreasonable In Nature.
Estate of Disney, Case No. A171426 (1st Dist., Div. 2 Apr. 28, 2026) (unpublished) was a situation where successor trustee of grandmother’s trust was granted trustee’s and attorney’s fees/costs of a substantial nature on prior occasions, but was denied trustee’s fees and $72,000 in further attorney’s fees and costs, after the probate court found that she had breached her duties by doing nothing for 4 years on tax issues so as to bring a $309,598.97 tax detriment against the trust. Successor trustee eventually was removed as the trustee, with the probate court surcharging her for the tax detriment. The surcharge and trustee fee/attorney’s fees denial orders were affirmed on appeal.
Although attorney’s fees relating to trust administration are generally compensable under Probate Code section 15684(a), this does not occur where a trustee has breached the trust—as successor trustee did. (Estate of Gump, 1 Cal.App.4th 582, 605 (1991).) Also, successor trustee could not be reimbursed for attorney’s fees incurred in the removal petition phase of the case. (Butler v. LeBoeuf, 218 Cal.App.4th 198, 213 (2016).) Finally, some fees were properly denied because they involved multiple communications between trustee and attorneys of an unreasonable nature.