issue is whether a basis existed for the post staff award it's undisputed really martin passed away never having been adjudicated to be disabled no guardian was appointed no guardianship account was ever established under the line of cases the drugs the wellman case this court's publico dabbous occurred in chip courts continuing jurisdiction and retain powers and no capacity recognized in the probate act as being a representative of those awards there was no basis for those awards once only passed away there was no prospect of the nd issue would be if there was a basis what would be the proper source of payment if there was a basis and the issue is that the u b s transfer on death account would not be a proper basis transfer on  m payment on das are statutory creations of the illinois legislature with the specific purpose ownership transfer to the beneficiaries one fully martin passed away and there were all turning of funds  as specifically recognized by the circuit guardianship and turns of a substantial refund residency free fun from monarch landing which the court recognized would be a proper alternative source the space bar and exploit lilly martin and in fact the u b s account was one of the issues that had been the subject of the will county o p proceedings as one of the means by which there was an attempt to get to her funds that was going to jordi of the funds for the care you couldn't have the motion to disqualify mood it d and then entertain the controversy as to whether there was propriety to make a claim feeds last issue and this is just preserved so there's no waiver but leave attorneys since graduating from law school for a living and daniel martin and martin was adjudicated as the legal representative with recognized powers of attorney for lilly mark to act and speak for her during the will county order protection representation there is not per se bar an attorney being awarded fees and distinguishing the fee shifting statutes the last point being the common from background because when you look at what is done which was successfully done were successful and halting her the spread of her oral cancer and was exceedingly expensive but were able to get her rolled in the specialized programs that allowed you to receive those treatments d happened in the atlanta cases and the explanation including in the court how the court decision which discusses some of this is that you do have original subject matter jurisdiction but then the issue of the courts continuing jurisdiction and the language that was used as retained powers are prescribed by the probate act so there isn't even in the original jurisdiction just a court cannot unilaterally make these kinds of awards without a basis  because neither was the guardian and neither held any representative compasses the as recognized by the probate act so that would be the requirement for any kind of award at that time and even separately from that they have no legally recognized continuing jurisdiction in the retain powers have to find their bases in the probate act let me ask your questions of bring in the current in the mix here you've are going to court erred by entering the passed away the other two parties can decide what they want to do with their one rd and if they decide that they want to pay their portion of the guardian ad litem speeds out of their cash cash portion of the u b s account they're entitled to do that they were able to do that and i want to back up back and in january everyone except to be at the very end actually negating their client's consent had agreed to a stipulation whereby the fees for the jail would be paid strictly from the monarch landing i'll turn the funds refund and then there was a later a subsequent change that they wanted to pay a portion of their one rd cashier's that was fine and then the one rd that the legislature provides a statutory authorization for a claim of attorneys fees to the extent that a lawyer elects to proceed pro se she has no attorney's fees to claim and is not entitled to an award of attorney's fees under the se attorney representation in the recently decided two thousand and nineteen illinois supreme court mccarthy v taylor case the court said there is not there isn't a per se probation  recovery of attorney's fees and in that case in the end they award of the attorney fees so the pro se attorney representing himself and appear one dollar on one legal dispute with another party were awarded ball and the court distinguishes prior distributed and the parties had paid their own attorneys as i think the court order said would you be appealing that i'm not sure i understand the issue your honor and i may just may not be filing it the issue is that the attorneys fees for the parties the siblings other than you were paid out of their shares of  this and becomes a final judgment in the sense that it's now completely and forcible will any of the siblings shares be utilized pay well d the thing is it doesn't distinguish so you're taking monies that are coming for one dollar party's attorneys that are coming out of a share that belongs to another party so it isn't the instance that was done strictly with regard to the guard light where there was agreement for certain shares of the two parties to come from their cash amount where they were paying that to the guardian ad litum but if but your honor was to affirm it would not result and what your honor thought happened because that was with respect to the guardian ad litem and in that sense i would be for example and paul martin would be paying toward k b fees out of a portion of what is our funds in the u b s account that transferred already and at poly here i think that where i was going to start was with the question of whether the court has continuing jurisdiction after the death of a respondent or ward to hear any remaining issues and you know what is at issue here with the petition and there's already been discussion about gabby's and the cases that came after in this district as well as others that the court does have ongoing jurisdiction after the death of responding or ward mr martin's argument then goes to whether there is actual authority in the probate act to award fees to the attorney for a petitioner for guardianship which there is in section twenty five dollars dash two a of the probate act there is a specific authority for the attorney for representative to be entitled to reasonable compensation for his services the cross petition or mr martin tries to take a very limited view of the word representative arguing that it needs to be a court approved a court appointed representatives in order for that individual's attorney's fees to be awarded will but that ignores the case thought interpret in that statute differently i'm specifically looking at the state revelli the st district case where the court says that it's well established that an attorney for a person seeking conservatorship or guardianship is entitled to attorney's fees whether the petition  successful or not so that the the definition or the interpretation rather of the word representative is much broader and the court in that case addresses the limitations that across petition are put forward and indicate that in looking at the legislature's drafting of that that no such limitation on the word representative was intended so not only do you have ongoing jurisdiction based on the general jurisdiction of the circuit court that continues on after the death of a ward or put to respond in a guardianship case but you also have specific authority in the probate act to award fees to the attorney for petitioner such as tina hyatt in that case turning to the u b s account and whether that is a proper source of payment for the fees that were approved and awarded i believe that it is the guardianship case was initiated because u b s would not recognize either of the parties either tina hyatt or allen martin's power of attorney there were conflicting documents on file and you be asked specifically told our office that it guardianship was needed before any action could be taken on the account to the account was essentially frozen so the fact that this entire case started because access to u b s was restricted i think is one very big reason why it's entirely appropriate to award fees and costs from the case and assess them against this u b s asset i think that there is jurisdiction there for the reasons discussed previously i think the transfer on death security registration act that cross petitioner bases his argument on yes it says ownership transfers but that does not mean that a court does not have jurisdiction over the account there's no support for the position that this court this guardianship court had jurisdiction over that account during the early martin's lifetime and then immediately lost jurisdiction at the moment of her passing there's also the doctrine of equitable contribution that i think is important to consider here there is the case that i would  reference for that is in the state of brazil which is a nine hundred and sixty five dollars case but it's been affirmed in the state of elias more recently in two thousand and eleven where the court ordered that attorneys fees in a probate paid from non probate assets basically assets that were not part of the part of the estate the court there looked at several factors and one dollar of which was whether the attorney services were in interest of that asset that the fees were coming from in this underlying case the guardianship court in awarding key logger fees specifically found that the attorney services were for the benefit of the respondent so that matches up with that factor the court there in that case also looked at whether the probate assets were insufficient to pay the fees and then making it reasonable to go outside the probate to find assets to satisfy fee orders and that was the case here as well the only available asset at the time that those orders were entered was the u b s account the other factor another factor is whether those nonprofit assets that fees came from were closely related to the case which i've gone through that the c b s account was central to this case and and then whether the court had jurisdiction of his argument that this needed to be heard st before fees were awarded those cases involved summary judgment motion to dismiss substantive and dispositive rulings we never got to that point in this case no guardian was appointed no adjudication of disability was made no petitions were granted or denied also the disqualification issue is moot not only because lily martin passed away and no longer needs a guardian and none will ever be appointed but also because it would have no effect disqualification of k p law group would not affect the order for fees because those are made on a separate finding and basis being necessary and in the interest of the guardianship the state and so the disqualification would would not have any effect i also wanted to point out quickly that even if that disqualification issue with heard there has been nothing stated in support of a conflict of interest well a martin was a former client you know high at a current client in order for there to be a conflict there needs to be something materially adverse just a filing for guardianship in itself is not materially odd st there's no actual conflict allege final issue of mr martin's fees i agree that the hammer decision and all the decisions that have come since have been very clear that a self represented attorney litigant is not entitled to fees or plot public policy reasons in those cases i wanted to specifically address the most recent case that across petitioner brings up the mccarthy illinois supreme court case in two thousand and nineteen that was extremely narrow and limited to a case involving rule one hundred and thirty seven sanctioned and the court allowed fees in that case and specifically said that th ward of fees was intended as a punishment against the party who was abusing the judicial process not as a reward to a successful pro se attorney stipulation that was signed was a stipulation that two thirds of the g l fees come from u b s and one dollar rd from the probate state his fees would i'm not i'm not sure there were agreements on perhaps taking fees out of the u b s account there was never any agreement that he would not be responsible for anybody's fees and there was never an agreement that each party would share their own fees and your argument that he should be required or at least part of the payment would come out of his is because this was necessary as litigation was necessary because otherwise they were not going to pay out the u b s account by agreement is a correct what is your it was necessary it was so my rationale is that this is an asset of the guardianship i realize a guardian was not appointed but this was an asset that was part of the guardianship case the fees were awarded to come out of that account off the top of so to speak because this was an asset of lily martin and not because the parties were being forced to individually or the parties were being asked to pay the fees it was an assessment of the fees against the respondent lily martin's asset she was paying out of her asset before any distribution to beneficiaries there is some question about whether that account should be split equally there's some disagreement on that and the cio deform itself i don't think that affects what is on appeal but i the account is is her subject to the guardianship court's jurisdiction it was the subject of this case and that is what the court had to award fees from and the fees of each attorney affected were found to benefit her to benefit lilly martin and so those should come from her asset st before any consideration next of who the beneficiaries are program come within the recognized those exceptions allowing compensation for him and actually the efforts of his the law firm i understand you talked about the narrow point in the recent case but  there are they not you know i i don't i don't think that they are i do not see a case where a self represented attorney litigant is able to receive compensation on this basis of benefit to to an estate and you know beyond that i don't actually believe that it has been shown that his efforts saved her state  significant amount of money i don't know how many treatment she had i think it was very few he said it was successful we haven't really gone through that  there was no cost to those handful of treatments that she received but you know was that a significant effort with this trial this trial treatment readily offered for free to people who are willing to try it i don't see much in the way of supporting in fact for benefiting her estate thank you i don't have any other questions at this time i through this berlin could i verify the time line that by the time the court entered the order relating to the assessment of guardian ad litem fees and attorney's fees that lilian had already passed that is correct she passed away in may and i'm not sure i quite understand why a document that says transfer upon death wouldn't transfer upon death it may have been an asset of willy's and if the trial court  entered the order while lily was still alive your argument makes sense but i were to accept your argument it would seem to me that the i r s could make the same claim and assessed taxes on that account when in fact that account was set up to avoid taxes in my and correct my understand i there the fact that it transfers on death does you know provide some benefits avoiding probate and and and perhaps taxes i don't i don't know for certain but there are cases where the court was still able to assess or exercise authority over a t o g account and and i i think that the court's going to and one other thing that i that i wanted to point out and i haven't had a chance to yet is if there is no way for a guardianship quarter a probate court to assess fees against a t o d account then they're going to be situations where if if attorneys and jails don't file feet petitions constantly that there's you know even if their services are found to be in the best interest of the state and for the benefit of the ward those fees have nowhere to come from i don't think it's uncommon to have a you assume do you not that it means that there's nothing in the state with correct pay as an alternative source correct yes because yes it's not a cynic when on where you either get it through this account or you don't get it ever right yes no my argument makes the assumption or takes it i guess one step further in this case she didn't have any available funds at the time and so my argument is that if there is if there's no ability for the guardianship court to assess fees against a t o g account that had been owned by the responding or ward what about the cases where there is no probate estate and there is no other secondary asset guess that's what we have to decide  as i think justice hudson said why is it that we thought that there was a stipulation that is not of record as somewhat paradoxical but talking about some resolutions the only stipulation in the record was for the guardian ad litem that's the only stipulation that was reached there were some initial discussions and i'm looking for the email about how we could use the u b s account to pay the attorneys fees ordered but that was never that was never signed course and by the trial court as to where this money came from in so far as the rights of the parties to this asset because you suggested that there were issues about the distribution and the percentages or something like that that i mis understand what you related you know you didn't even miss understand there are but it would not be that it's a question that is currently in a trust saying i did not want to say that it was an equal distribution account ad litem sees from the cash portion of their u b s account and it specifically says it will not come out of alan martin's portions it's express and that the one rd will come from allen's martin's portion of the monarch landing refund to the extent your honor i had and i understand that there was something express it is it's in the stipulation there further was an agreement in the e mail which miss berlin herself confirmed that once this was done and the stipulations were signed that u b s was to proceed with the distribution of all the remaining assets that non cash assets and what have you with alan martin or some not being affected and everyone receiving their monies subsequently miss berlin reneged on that agreement and what she failed to advise the court there was a cook county action that actually joining you would be so there would get a term of nation so the one rd division and distribution could go forward this action referred to was subsequently filed after the cook county many months later and that's going to be subject to a more than they are that this mess because all the parties are in cook county u b s is u b s is joints of the there will be an actual binding determination to go forward with the as agreed expressly in the me email one rd one rd distribution less than one is that per the stipulation were paid out of the cash portion tina and  per that final stipulation for the g a o going back to the very beginning i think the one thing that we haven't heard from a poly counsel is what representative capacity the tina hyatt supposedly home she doesn't fall within the definition of any probate act representative that would be allowed to receive attorney screes and we set forth in our reply brief and it's on the st twenty three dollars pages where the language of the statute the set out and refers to executor administrator administrator the collection and by guardian guard and in temporary guardian there is a separate provision d also the house for the jail to recover seats if they're supposed to be some other represented the when the legislature constructed the probate act and other instances such as interested person where there are a listing or identification of certain specifics but there are others that may not be included the legislature has included language such as including without limitation when it comes to the duties of an estate guardian it says actions that can happen funds mangku but shall not be limited to an statutory or custodian er and there is one case the rows of the case forty one year old case where the facts were completely different from this case and it did not by the court that by the statutory construction but could have gotten there under the construction because this was mr zolli once there was no dispute that the individual who was a client was actually in a coma in the hospital and they could not find anyone who is able to follow up because bill's remounting and the nurse found the attorneys the attorneys card in his pocket of his pants caught me and the attorney took actions on behalf of the party to make sure that these things public standpoint the court also was very specific about saying that the that it agreed that it would not allow many errors his or her attorney  there's a real public policy or that any party then well no representative basket whatsoever your time is up  didn't have this come from the other alternative available space assets that have been minor monies have been paid and the court understood that they were going to be paid even though they hadn't been received just yet they have been paid as of now that were all turn the funds they were available if jr was fine with having her monies paid from those alternative funds there was an issue as to that and there shouldn't be an underwriting of somebody else's fees out of an accountant transferred ownership when you martin going back to the point you were making at the beginning of your rebuttal argument that tina was not pointed representative under the probate action did not have any  made there i don't believe that's the case your honor because i think the statutes clear and when the legislature blind the clues with other instances when when something's identified it includes language this broad and broadening many of errors petitioning and recovering fees so there was an appointment even rosati in providing the fees for the attorney who is acting affectively in a guardian capacity for some of the where there was made clear that that is not what the court was saying for len mentioned a cause of action relating to it the interpretation of the trust you have any comment as to what exactly the issues are before the guardianship card about the t o d and the one rd shares that op was clear and it was only afterwards a missed berlin sent an email saying that she was again reneging on that agreement we filed in cook county we joined u b s to get this to go forward so it could be clearly resolved and this action that now was brought was months later as a result of the cook county action and then there was an attempt to have the cook county action transferred based on not convenience the subsequently found case that's still pending but u b s is located in chicago so it's convenient for you get all the the account the account records all of the individuals s any other panelist have a question based upon the questions that were asked after  them maybe don is mooted or muted i mean i didn't hear you indicate whether or not you had any other questions based upon questions that were asked after you and i do not think ok thank you thank you will the panel will take the case under advisement and i declare oral argument over thank you thank you