McPike v. Hasbrouck
McPike v. Hasbrouck
Opinion of the Court
Heretofore H. W. McPike, administrator of the estate of Margaret A. Jennings, deceased, presented to the Superior Court of the State of California, in and for the City and County of San Francisco, sitting as a probate court, his first annual account. Thereafter, on the 4th day of November, 1936, the said court made an order allowing the account in part, disallowing certain items, and modifying the amount as to some other items. Later the administrator appealed from certain portions of said order. Other facts will be stated below when the occasion arises.
The administrator states his first point as follows: “Does the statute, Probate Code section 902, authorize the court to refuse all extraordinary compensation to an administrator who has rendered ‘any extraordinary services, such as . . . litigation in regard to the property of the estate’ where the whole estate is involved in the litigation and successfully defended by the administrator?” The point as stated may not, under the facts of this case, be answered directly. It assumes that this administrator rendered extraordinary services. The record does not sustain the assumption. Soon after the death of the decedent, H. W. McPike applied for and was granted letters of administration. Immediately thereafter he qualified and at once went to the Hibernia Savings and Loan Society and drew out of that bank $4,211.28, and put it in his attorney’s safe. Said sum of money was the sole item of property coining into the hands of the administrator. A short time after the appellant qualified as administrator, Annie Gillespie made a demand on him that he surrender all of said money to her, claiming that said money was by the decedent orally transferred to her under a contract duly entered into and by the terms of which Annie Gillespie agreed to care for the decedent during the remainder of her life. The administrator refused to surrender the property and thereupon Annie Gillespie commenced an action against him to recover said moneys. Except as noted below, the record discloses that he, personally, performed no services whatever in connection with the defense of said action. However, it does disclose
The second point is stated as follows: “Is it proper for the court to charge the administrator or administrator’s attorney for interest upon administrator’s fees and attorney’s fees paid before final settlement?” (Italics ours.) Attempting to answer that proposition as directly as the record warrants, there is no evidence that the administrator’s fees or attorney’s fees have been paid. The record does not disclose that the probate court has ever made an order authorizing any payment of the statutory fees to the appellant or to his attorney, but on the other hand, the order appealed from, among other things, contained the following: “ . . . statutory fee claimed by administrator retired from the account and reserved until hearing on the final account and petition for final distribution, $198.45; and the statutory fee claimed for the administrator’s attorney, retired from the account and reserved until the hearing on the final account and petition for final distribution in the amount of $198.45; and so much thereof as ordered, adjudged and decreed that the application for a fee for extraordinary services of the attorney for the administrator be granted in the sum of $200.00, and the payment of which shall be deferred until the hearing and settlement of the final account; ...” The appellant testified that he never used any of the money and from that testimony we assume he never paid fees to himself nor to his attorney. It follows that the record does not show that the order appealed from imposed a charge for interest on fees paid to the appellant or fees paid to his attorney.
The order appealed from is affirmed.
Nourse, P. J., and Spence, J., concurred.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.