Conservatorship of Rawls
Filed 8/15/13 Conservatorship of Rawls CA2/3
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS
California
Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or
relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except
as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This
opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for
purposes of rule 8.1115.
IN THE COURT OF
APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
SECOND APPELLATE
DISTRICT
DIVISION THREE
Conservatorship of the Person and Estate of RAY DEAN
RAWLS.
___________________________________
TERESA L. SCHROEDER,
Petitioner
and Appellant,
v.
JASON S. SHEINBERG et al.,
Claimants
and Respondents.
B244739
(Los
Angeles County
Super. Ct.
No. GP015217)
APPEAL
from an order of the Superior Court
of
County, Mary Thornton House, Judge. Affirmed.
San
Diego Law Firm, Steven J. Roberts and Jason S. Sheinberg for Petitioner and
Appellant.
No
appearance for Claimants and Respondents.
_________________________
Teresa
L. Schroeder, as conservator of the estate and person of Ray Dean Rawls, filed
a petition seeking attorney fees and costs for the
the San Diego Law Firm (the Firm) rendered during probate proceedings.
payment of attorney fees and costs to the Firm from the conservatorship estate
of Rawls’s wife, Schroeder contends the probate court abused its discretion by
reducing the amount of attorney fees she requested by approximately 38
percent. The court based the award on a
reasonable fee for the three-month conservatorship. Because we conclude the court acted within
its broad discretion, we affirm the order.
FACTUAL
AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
1.
Ray
Dean Rawls suffered from congestive heart failure and dementia. Rawls’s house was condemned in 2006. In 2010, when Rawls could no longer care for
himself, he and his wife were removed from extreme conditions in the
extended-stay hotel they were living in and taken to Glendale
Adventist Hospital
pursuant to Welfare and Institutions Code section 5150. Rawls was later transferred to a care
facility.
On
May 13, 2010, Teresa L.
Schroeder, Rawls’s niece, filed a petition to establish a temporary
conservatorship of the person and estate of Rawls. The court appointed Schroeder. Letters of temporary conservatorship issued
on June 4, 2010. Letters of conservatorship issued on July 16, 2010.
Schroeder
notified the court that Rawls died on July
28, 2010.
2.
In
response to a court order, Schroeder filed her first and final account on November 14, 2011, which included a
petition seeking attorney fees. Rawls’s
estate assets at that point, including the estimated value of his home, were
approximately $380,191.42.
Schroeder
requested $21,285 in attorney fees for the Firm to be paid by Rawls’s wife’s
conservatorship estate. The request was
based on attorney Sheinberg’s declaration, stating he had worked 48.1 hour at
$225 per hour, and the Firm’s paralegals had worked 83.7 hours at $125 per hour.
At
the January 20, 2012
hearing, the court determined that attorney Sheinberg’s declaration was
insufficient and asked for a supplemental report.
Schroeder
filed a supplemental report, and he filed a second supplemental report. In the second supplemental report, Schroeder
requested $26,045 in attorney fees, constituting 56.2 hours of attorney
services and 107.2 hours of paralegal services.
3.
The
probate examiner recommended an attorney fees award not to exceed $12,000,
noting that the request was “extraordinarily high,†as the conservatorship was
unopposed and in effect for less than three months.
During
the hearing before a judge pro tempore, the issue of the excessive amount of
fees for a three-month conservatorship was addressed. Attorney Sheinberg stated the Firm had been
working on the case for two years, and thereafter detailed the Firm’s
involvement. Attorney Sheinberg also
stated that Schroeder did not object to the attorney fees requested.
The
matter was taken under submission, and the court awarded the Firm $16,000 in
attorney fees. Schroeder appeals.
DISCUSSION
1.
Regarding Attorney Fees
Section
2640 provides a conservator may petition the court for an order fixing and allowing
compensation to an attorney who has rendered services to a conservator of a
person or estate or both that the court determines is reasonable. (§ 2640, subds. (a), (c), see also § 2642,
subd. (b) [upon a petition filed by an attorney who has rendered services to a
conservator of a person or estate or both, the court shall allow compensation
to the attorney for services rendered to the conservator that “the court
determines [is] reasonable.â€].) The
determination of what constitutes reasonable attorney fees rests in the sound
discretion of the court. (
Cal.App.4th 544, 549.) “The ‘
“experienced trial judge is the best judge of the value of professional
services rendered in his court, and while his judgment is of course subject to
review, it will not be disturbed unless the appellate court is convinced that
it is clearly wrong.†’
[Citation.]†(
1132.)
“A
fundamental rule of appellate review is that ‘ “[a] judgment or order of the
lower court is presumed correct. All intendments and presumptions are indulged
to support it on matters as to which the record is silent, and error must be
affirmatively shown.†’ [Citations.] The record must firmly establish an abuse of
discretion. [Citation.] ‘The burden is on the party complaining to
establish an abuse of discretion.’
[Citation.]†(
Cal.App.4th 835, 841.)
There
is no statutory requirement that the probate court make specific findings of fact
supporting an allowance of attorney fees.
(See §§ 2640, subds. (a)(3) & (c), 2642, subd. (b).) “In awarding attorney fees in a lesser amount
than requested, trial courts are not required to specify each and every claimed
item found to be unsupported or unreasonable.
[Citation.]†(
(2009) 178 Cal.App.4th 44, 67.)
The
record, however, must provide some rationalization for a court’s attorney fees
award. (Gorman v. Tassajara Development Corp., supra, 178 Cal.App.4th at p. 101.)
“When a trial court makes an award that is inscrutable to the parties
involved in the case, and there is no apparent reasonable basis for the award
in the record, the award itself is evidence that it resulted from an arbitrary
determination. It is not the absence of
an explanation . . . but its inability to be explained by anyone, either the parties or [the]
appellate court.†(Ibid.) We conclude the
record provides a rationalization for the probate court’s decision to award
less than the requested amount of attorney fees.
2.
The
Probate Court Did Not Abuse its Discretion in Reducing Attorney Fees
The
Firm contends the probate court arbitrarily reduced the amount requested by
focusing on the three-month conservatorship, and ignoring the two-year duration
of these proceedings, along with other factors, including the nature of the
services rendered up until the order on the final account and report of
conservator, the value of the estate, and the Firm’s successes that actually
avoided incurring additional attorney fees.
This argument improperly asks this court to substitute its discretion
for the probate court’s discretion.
The
attorney fees awarded were reasonable.
Schroeder, with the help of the Firm, initiated these proceedings in May
2010, and Rawls died in July 2010. The
conservatorship was unopposed. The
Firm’s declarations submitted in connection with the petition for attorney fees
do not specifically indicate the legal services it provided in this case after
Rawls’s death until November 14, 2011, when the first and final account was
filed.
and paralegal services specifically refer to filing petitions, and in more
general terms refer to “communications†associated with the administration of
this conservatorship. Not one of the
entries describes extraordinary services such as the ones listed in California
Rules of Court, rule 7.703(c). The
probate court’s reduction in the attorney fees requested is justified given its
general observation of the nature of this conservatorship.
The
Firm also contends that the record does not indicate a justification for the
probate court’s decision to reduce the requested attorney fees to $16,000. The award is 25 percent higher than the
probate examiner’s recommendation, but approximately 38 percent less than what
the Firm requested using the lodestar method.
(PLCM Group, Inc. v. Drexler
(2000) 22 Cal.4th 1084, 1095 [number of hours reasonably expended
multiplied by the reasonable hourly rate].)
Although there is no mathematical computations in the record, it is
evident from the billing statements that the probate court awarded attorney
fees for the amount of hours billed for legal and paralegal services in
connection with drafting, filing, and appearing at the hearing on the petition
for temporary and permanent conservatorship, and in preparing the first and
final account, but discounted the hours billed for internal
communications. Thus, there was a
rational basis for the award.
Accordingly, the probate court did not abuse its discretion.
DISPOSITION
The
attorney fees order under review is affirmed.
Schroeder bears her own costs on appeal.
NOT
TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS
ALDRICH,
J.
We concur:
KLEIN,
P. J.
CROSKEY,
J.
name="_ftn1" title="">[1] Probate
Code section 2640 states: “(a) At any
time after the filing of the inventory and appraisal, but not before the
expiration of 90 days from the issuance of letters or any other period of time
as the court for good cause orders, the guardian or conservator of the estate
may petition the court for an order fixing and allowing compensation to any one
or more of the following: [¶] (1) . . . (3) The attorney for services
rendered to that time by the attorney to the guardian or conservator of the person
or estate or both.†Probate Code section
2642 authorizes an attorney who has rendered legal services to the conservator
of the person or the estate or both, to file a petition at any time permitted
by Probate Code section 2640. Here,
Schroeder filed the petition seeking attorney fees under Probate Code section
2640, and thus appeals from that order.
All further statutory
references are to the Probate Code.
other briefs have been filed. In these
circumstances, California Rules of Court, rule 8.220(a)(2) provides “the court
[will] decide the appeal on the record, the opening brief, and any oral
argument by the appellant.â€
