Although Not Raised Artfully, Merits Of Objections Required An Evidentiary Hearing.
Estate of Willard, Case No. 282122 (2d Dist., Div. 7 Jan. 2, 2019) (unpublished) is a case where an estate administrator of his mother’s estate did not gain any attention to his challenges to an attorney’s request for statutory and extraordinary probate fees. The trial court overruled his objections without allowing an evidentiary hearing, even though he was an in pro per litigant.
This one got reversed on appeal, where the reviewing court determined that there were meritorious challenges which did not get vetted by an in pro per party. It did not matter that the objections were inartfully “aired,” because this was an unusual situation where the merits showed that the objections should have been considered.
On appeal, the 2/7 DCA decided that the merits were very compelling because this was a contested matter such that an evidentiary hearing was justified on these issues: (1) failure to respond to a tax assessor’s notice resulting in some penalties; (2) responsibility for an 18-month delay in administering a probate estate; (3) billing charges which were duplicative, excessive, or inaccurate in nature; (4) improperly demanding and receiving compensation from a litigant personally; (5) deciding whether the attorney billed the right client for services; and (5) considering whether the requesting attorney properly communicated with his clients.
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