Filed 10/9/26 Conservatorship of Adham CA2/5
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS
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IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT
DIVISION FIVE
Conservatorship of the Person B349962
and Estate of MOHAMED
ADHAM. (Los Angeles County
Super. Ct. No.
22STPB08269)
DINA ADHAM, as Conservator
of the Estate,
Petitioner and Appellant,
v.
CHRISTI EDWARDS et al.,
Objectors and
Respondents.
APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of Los
Angeles County, Stephanie C. Santoro, Judge. Affirmed.
Moravec, Varga & Mooney and Henry J. Moravec III for
Appellant.
Law Offices of Christopher G. Hook and Chrisopher G.
Hook for Respondents.
******
In this probate matter, a conservator sought to invalidate
withdrawals totaling $12,595.67 from one of the conservatee’s
bank accounts by the conservatee’s business partner on the
ground that the conservatee was incompetent to authorize those
withdrawals at the time those withdrawals were made. The
probate court excluded the conservator’s proffered expert opinion
testimony that the conservatee was incompetent at the time of
the withdrawals. Because the exclusion of this testimony was
neither erroneous nor prejudicial, we affirm the order in favor of
the conservatee’s business partner.
FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
I. Facts1
A. Pertinent background
With his first wife, Mohamed Adham (Mohamed) has two
now-adult daughters—Dina Adham (Dina) and Ronda Adham
1 We state the facts in the light most favorable to the ruling
on appeal. Because there are several gaps in the appendices, and
because the parties opted not to transmit the exhibits, we draw
some of the facts and procedural history from our prior opinion in
this litigation. (See Adham et al. v. Edwards et al. (Nov. 6, 2025,
B342461, B340483) [nonpub. opn.].)
2
Zulich (Ronda).2 Before the first wife’s passing in 2005, the
couple created the Adham Family Trust, and one of the trust’s
assets is an investment account held at TD Ameritrade.
Mohamed also owns an individual retirement account (IRA) at
TD Ameritrade. Mohamad subsequently remarried.
For decades, Mohamed worked as an accountant. In 2006,
he hired Christi Edwards (Edwards) to assist him with the
business. She worked full-time for Mohamed out of his home.
Over the years, Edwards went from being an employee to more of
a business partner and, eventually, their professional
relationship grew into more of a father-daughter type
relationship.
When Mohamed lost a significant amount of his personal
savings during the 2008 economic recession, he took Edwards’
suggestion to invest in a certain stock which turned out to be
lucrative. Mohamed also invested a portion of Edwards’
employment compensation and managed that investment on
Edwards’ behalf in his TD Ameritrade investment account. In
2015, Mohamed executed a writing stating that Edwards had
“been [his] part[ner] since 2006,” that she “contributed” to his
investment account, that Mohamed was “leaving” Edwards’ a
$125,000 “gain” from that investment in his “account,” and that
Edwards “can take the monies out whenever she decides to.”
By September 2020, Mohamed’s health had seriously
declined and he began to wind down his accounting practice.
Around that time, he handed over the practice to Edwards.
2 Because several of the individuals involved in this case
share the same surname, we use their first names to avoid
confusion. We mean no disrespect.
3
B. The transactions at issue
In November 2021, Edwards changed the address listed on
Mohamed’s IRA at TD Ameritrade from Mohamed’s home
address in Van Nuys to Edwards’ home address in Simi Valley.
Mohamed often vacationed for long stretches of time in Australia
with his second wife (where her family resides), and the couple
requested that Edwards forward their bills to Edwards’ home
address whenever they were abroad. Mohamed and his wife were
in Australia from December 28, 2021 through the end of March
2022.
Two checks for distributions from the IRA totaling
$12,595.67 were sent to Edwards’ address on December 9, 2021,
and February 9, 2022. Each check was for the required minimum
distribution Mohamed had to withdraw from the IRA each year.
Edwards then used Mohamed’s business stamp to endorse both
checks, and deposited the funds into Mohamed’s business
checking account.
Around the same window of time, Edwards issued
payments from Mohamed’s business checking account totaling
$126,000 to herself, to her then-boyfriend and now-husband
Richard Day (Day), to her mother, and to her credit card balance.
II. Procedural Background
After Dina’s appointment as temporary conservator over
Mohamed in April 2023,3 Dina in August 2023 filed a petition on
behalf of Mohamed’s estate seeking to recover from Edwards and
Day the $12,595.67 disbursed from the IRA (and then placed “in
the pool of funds” in Mohamed’s business checking account and
3 The probate court subsequently appointed Dina and Ronda
co-conservators over Mohamed’s person, and Dina conservator
over Mohamed’s estate.
4
withdrawn by Edwards and Day), and also sought a penalty for
the wrongful taking. In their objection to the petition, Edwards
and Day asserted that Mohamed had consented to and approved
of any monies they withdrew, as evidenced by his 2015
agreement authorizing Edwards to withdraw her investment
“whenever she decides to.”
The court convened a one-day bench trial on June 4, 2025.
Dina testified that she had no personal knowledge about whether
Edwards had authorized the two required minimum distributions
from Mohamed’s IRA, or about whether Mohamed had invested
any money for Edwards’ benefit. At the conclusion of her
testimony, Dina sought to call neuropsychologist Stacey Wood,
Ph.D., as an expert witness to “opine[] that since April 2019,
Mohamed lacked capacity and was susceptible to undue
influence.”4 The probate court did not permit Dr. Wood to testify
at that time, explaining that “the capacity or lack thereof of
[Mohamed] is really only necessary if we have some type of
evidence that [Mohamed had] . . . authorize[d] these
transactions” (that could be invalidated by his incapacity), and
that Dina’s testimony that she knew nothing about the pertinent
transactions or Mohamed’s prior arrangements with Edwards
meant that there was no evidence regarding Mohamed’s
authorization (or lack of authorization). Edwards then took the
4 The parties had confirmed that the trial judge was aware
that Mohamed had previously been found to be “mentally
incapacitated no later than April 1, 2019”, as that same judge
had granted a different petition by Dina in which she sought, on
behalf of the estate, to recover Mohamed’s inheritance funds that
his second wife wrongfully took starting in November 2019 when
Mohamed “lacked the financial and contractual capacity to
transmute the [i]nheritance [f]unds to community property.”
5
stand and testified that Mohamed had, at some point starting
around 2005 or 2006, and culminating in the 2015 agreement,
given her permission to withdraw $125,000 he was holding for
her in trust from his investment account “when [she] wanted to”.5
After the parties submitted closing briefs, the probate court
on July 8, 2025 issued its ruling denying Dina’s petition.
Although the court found that Dina had proven that Edwards
and Day had taken “the money in question,” it also found that
Dina had failed to prove—as was her burden—that the taking
was unauthorized or otherwise “wrongful.” The court noted that
the evidence presented at the trial supported one of two equally
reasonable inferences—that Edwards’ taking was unauthorized
(and wrongful) or that it was “authorized” by Mohamed in the
early years of their “close professional relationship”; Dina’s
failure to refute the latter inference meant that she failed to
carry her burden of proof.
In a motion for new trial, Dina argued that the probate
court’s error in excluding Dr. Wood’s testimony “concerning
Mohamed[’s] [] lack of capacity to authorize the transactions at
issue . . . prevented [Dina] from having a fair trial.”6 The court
denied the motion, explaining that Dr. Wood’s testimony
regarding Mohamed’s incompetence to authorize transactions
after 2018 did “not preclude the possibility that [Mohamed] may
5 Although Edwards at other points indicated that she did
not recall precisely when Mohamed authorized her to retake that
money, the probate court credited her testimony providing a time
frame.
6 Dina neither mentioned the new trial motion in her briefs
nor included it in her appendix.
6
have previously (at a time when he still had capacity)
authorize[d] Edwards to make such withdrawals.”
Dina timely filed this appeal.
DISCUSSION
Dina’s sole argument on appeal is that the probate court
erred in precluding Dr. Wood from testifying that Mohamed
lacked the capacity to authorize any transactions in 2021 or 2022.
(See Prob. Code, § 1300, subd. (k) [appeal may be taken from an
order adjudicating the merits of a petition to recovery
conservatee’s property].)7 We review claims of evidentiary error,
including the exclusion of expert testimony, for an abuse of
discretion. (Dart Industries, Inc. v. Commercial Union Ins. Co.
(2002) 28 Cal.4th 1059, 1078; People v. Waidla (2000) 22 Cal.4th
690, 718; Sargon Enterprises, Inc. v. University of Southern
California (2012) 55 Cal.4th 747, 773; Amtower v. Photon
Dynamics, Inc. (2008) 158 Cal.App.4th 1582, 1599.) What is
more, an evidentiary error warrants reversal only if “it is
reasonably probable that a result more favorable to the appealing
party would have been reached in the absence of the error.”
(Huffman v. Interstate Brands Corp. (2004) 121 Cal.App.4th 679,
692; People v. Watson (1956) 46 Cal.2d 818, 836.)
No reversal is required in this case for two reasons.8
7 Dina mentions in passing that the probate court erred in
limiting her cross-examination of Edwards to “five minutes,” but
the record does not support that finding, the record shows no
objection by Dina below, and Dina’s argument on this point in the
appellate briefing is too cursory to be cognizable.
8 We reject Edwards’ argument that Dina forfeited this issue;
Dina properly proffered the substance of Dr. Wood’s testimony
and the probate court precluded that testimony. That suffices.
7
First, the probate court did not err in excluding Dr. Wood’s
testimony. As the moving party seeking to recover the
conservatee’s property under Probate Code section 850, Dina had
the burden of proving that she had a “claim” to the $12,595.67
she sought to recover for Mohamed’s estate (Prob. Code, § 850,
subd. (a)(1)(D); Dudek v. Dudek (2019) 34 Cal.App.5th 154, 170-
172) and, hence, that Edwards’ possession of that money was
unauthorized; to recover double damages, Dina also had to show
that Edward’s unauthorized possession was “wrongful” (Prob.
Code, § 859; Dudek, at p. 172). Dr. Wood’s testimony would have
negated Mohamed’s capacity to authorize Edwards’ possession of
the money once Mohamed became incompetent in 2019. That
testimony was therefore relevant to disprove Mohamed’s
authorization contemporaneous with the 2021 and 2022 transfers,
as Dina repeatedly argued. But that testimony did not speak at
all to whether Mohamed was capable of authorizing the transfer
of that money prior to 2019. Yet the sole factually disputed
question at trial was whether Mohammed had authorized
Edwards to withdraw funds from the business accounts in 2015
or before. Thus, Dr. Wood’s testimony negating authorization
after that point in time did not help resolve any disputed issue
and hence was not relevant. (Evid. Code, § 210 [“relevant
evidence” is “evidence . . . having any tendency in reason to prove
or disprove any disputed fact that is of consequence to the
determination of the action”], italics added.) And even if Dr.
Wood’s testimony is deemed to have some relevance because it
would have negated authorization after 2019, that marginal
relevance was substantially outweighed by the “undue
consumption of time” at a one-day trial where Edwards was a
central witness. (Id., § 352.)
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Second, even if we were to assume there was an error
(because the probate court precluded Dr. Wood’s testimony before
Edwards testified that Mohamed’s authorization occurred prior to
2019), that error was not prejudicial. That is because Dina bore
the burden of proving that Edwards’ receipt of the $12,595.67
was without authorization, but offered no evidence to refute
Edwards’ testimony that Mohamed granted that authorization in
or before 2015. (People v. Allen (1985) 165 Cal.App.3d 616, 626
[where the “proven facts” equally support “each of two
inconsistent inferences” judgment “must go against the party
upon whom rests the necessity of sustaining one of these
inferences”].) That earlier authorization would validate Edwards’
taking of the money from the business checking account in 2021
or 2022—as Dina frankly acknowledged at trial—and Dr. Wood’s
testimony had no bearing on Mohamed’s testimony in that earlier
timeframe. Dina tries to sidestep this analysis by citing cases
where the erroneous exclusion of “all evidence relating to a claim”
or “essential expert testimony” violates due process and is
reversible per se. (Gordon v. Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. (2009) 170
Cal.App.4th 1103, 1114; California Crane School, Inc. v. National
Com. For Certification of Crane Operators (2014) 226 Cal.App.4th
12, 22-23 [“Denying a party the right to . . . offer evidence
deprives [her] of a fair trial and constitutes reversible error.”];
Spector v. Superior Court (1961) 55 Cal.2d 839, 844 [“Refusal to
permit counsel for petitioner to present evidence and make a
reasonable argument in support of his client’s position was not a
mere error in procedure. It amounted to a deprival of a
substantial statutory right”].) But, as noted above, the probate
court did not exclude all of Dina’s evidence (because Dina
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testified) and Dr. Wood’s expert testimony had, at most, marginal
relevance (and hence was not essential).
DISPOSITION
The order is affirmed. Edwards and Day are entitled to
their costs on appeal.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS.
______________________, P. J.
HOFFSTADT
We concur:
_________________________, J.
KIM (D.)
_________________________, J.
KUMAR*
* Retired Judge of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County,
assigned by the Chief Justice pursuant to article VI, section 6 of
the California Constitution.
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