counsel you may proceed when you are ready thank you your honor that the issue presented to this court in for purposes of this appeal is straightforward it is whether the trial court should have approved the accounting presented by royce pappa and subsequently whether after approving it it should have the trial court should have closed the sta y the the and to give the court just a little background the underlying issue here is a will contest filed by debbie against christ based on a will that was executed administer the state the ultimately royce sold most of the person or allegedly sold alleged claims to have sold much of the personal property that was in the estate and then filed an accounting essentially to get approval of that say oh the court over the objection of debbie pappas then approved the accounting and the counting essentially was an allegation by royce that she had sold all of the personal property in the estate into separate sales firearms in one sale to an individual named roy cooke and then all the remaining personal property in an estate sale conducted by an entity called pax m royce never provided while she provided a like sort of a final receipt of showing the total amount she had collected as the proceeds of the sale she never provided an inventory of what was actually sold or individual sales slips debbie objected to the accounting because there was no evidence that each of those individual that that each piece of personal property in the state had been sold and in objecting she also she provided two things debbie provided one a list of what all the assets or not all but she identified a number of items  believed were part of her father's estate at the time of his death that that had relatively high value and she provided based on her own internet searches her evidence of what that value was royce did not respond with any individual sales slips rather she just reiterated that she had sold everything and the proceeds were what they were and the trial court then approved the accounting and concluded that because the debts of the estate at that point exceeded the value of the estate there was nothing left to administer and dismissed the the underlying will contest and close the estate position is that this was against the manifest weight of the evidence because the court's decision was arbitrary and not based on the evidence that was presented essentially we had royce's say so that she had sold everything versus gabby's affidavit that there were items in this estate at the time of death that were worth more than far more than what royce claimed to have sold the estate for and there was a single piece of evidence that could have quickly  answered at least some of the questions that were that debbie raised about the validity of the accounting and that evidence was the collection of sales slips that pack  ink generated during the estate sale and the executors attorney rice's attorney brought those sales slips to court he offered those sales slips in e mails and then ultimately decide as we stayed in the brief and ultimately decided refused to provide them and the court never compelled him to do and what these still subscribe have done is it at least would have shown if right had indeed sold the property that debbie alleged had a substantially higher value than what was realized at the estate sale and what that property was sold for and that set of fact is ties in with the case law that we've presented on when the appellate courts have reversed trial court decisions related to inventories and accounting because those approvals were against the manifest weight of the evidence or those decisions that were related to the accountings and inventories were against the manifest weight of the evidence in the glen ost crore and regal berger cases what warrant was not enough and here we have rice's say so i sold everything without any supporting documents showing that in fact she did settle everything  again the say so of the administrators that a particular asset was or was not in the case of course that it was part of the estate when the inventory of the estate was the only documentary evidence presented in the end that documentary evidence said it wasn't in the state crore the executor administrator was just the court's decision the trial court decision was reversed again because the say so of the administrator was not enough in light of the superior documentary evidence of what the inventory said about whether the asset was or was not a part of the estate so here again we have gabby's petition which goes into greater detail about  assets that were in the estate or that she alleges were in the estate and the value of those assets versus again royce is just general say so i sold everything and i yielded and that sale you know that x dollars and then finally there employer showed that in fact there were retirement assets now those aren't estate assets that's not what that's not the subject of this lawsuit but it does go to her truthfulness or her  general tendency towards truthfulness in this matter so essentially the trial court could have simply asked answered a number of outstanding questions by having  produce the sales slips that were sume still are clearly in her possession that her and turnings that brought to court and that could have could easily be produced with very little cost or expense to the parties to the stan whether the items that debbie alleges should have been part of the estate and should have fetched a much higher value at at a sale actually were  sold and i'm happy to take questions now justice brennan your client says you know there are these ass pieces of art that maybe we're all these months and if they are worth what he says essentially there's a know i think it would be yes it's fair to say that the artwork could have sold for substantially less and and if the artwork was sold and it was sold for substantially less then we have a very different issue in front of us which you know should be should the executor have gotten an appraisal st was did she get the right value and and frankly that would be a harder appeal than this one is here the issue is that we don't even have the best easiest to provide evidence of what was actually sold which is the sales slips that were generated as part of this sale so so we don't know if she you know she could have said here the sales slips a few of the items you listed were sold and they're worth way less than you claim they are and a few of the items you listed were never part of the estate and again that would be a very different  fight at this point than the issue that we're presented with which is the executor simply saying i sold everything you don't get to see what i sold and then the court closing the estate  the lawyer who handled this a trial level i think is not you know on the phone right now on the other side of this so you know what happened was he had them in court i saw the stack of them and i believe the judge saw the stack of them as well but ultimately he refused to provide them to me to look at and the judge  and the trial court did not require him to provide for me to look at that's that's what we can all speculate on and that is they're not going to do and i mean i think that not the why the attorney didn't want to look at them but why didn't the judge compelling and he in the articulated reason  he did not articulate a reason i know from the questions this bridge is yes thank you as a follow up to that question come so when i look at the record wasn't there a settlement  negotiation on this case until the brother came in and that was the reason you never took or never had the opportunity to in fact review the receipt because that was my understanding is that you were moving towards a settlement and till he came in and then stopped everything is that correct me so i can remember months i mean let me make sure that i'm correct on the year here so in and that i guess blew up the settlement negotiations we were headed towards mediation ordered by the court and agreed to by the parties somewhat reluctantly and when we learned that royce peppa the executor had sold all of the personal property in the stay just prior to going into that or starting the process of preparing statements for that mediation but come to what i wanted to you mention this to justice brennan in fact it was it was that filing by contest the will so that was on file but we were we i believe i mean we had essentially reached an agreement subject and to be we were waiting to see if the if the brother filed and if we'd made it you know one more day yet probably this would settle and so that was the reason the sales receipt was not that important at that time is that correct no the personal property had not been sold at that time it was sold about three months later after that and that impossible to continue settlement negotiations counsel can you tell me why you never saw the  one citation one it applies to property that is in the hands of a rd not it could be the executor are essentially not listed in the estate inventory and so one we don't know who purchased the personal property and so serving them with a citation might i mean so i'm not sure that the citation technically is the way to proceed here we certainly could have served a discovery stay but as harry let me to get one quick step back and far as discovery goes we could have used the citation process to get that information but we also had an open w contest that allows us to serve discovery as well either route is a way to discovery in an underlying probate proceeding and so we served discovery intended to get exactly what a citation would have we ray cook their motion to quash that subpoena was not i don't believe based on its pre procedurally it being improper but rather that it was you know just not necessary to the case and we serve discovery requests on royce pappa directed at what was sold so so we were looking and including document requests that these receipts certainly would have been responsive to what so anything we could have gotten in the discovery citation we also could have gotten through discovery served in this will contest and in fact to serve discovery geared to exactly those documents and and the court did not say that our discovery was improper rather he said that he had adequate evidence he felt like even though the accounting with him was not perfect the evidence was adequate for him to determine that the estate was insolvent and should be closed the tr court never in the new findings regarding the will contest correct correct not at all but your complaint challenged the will based on lack of capacity and when these other advanced occurred related to the sale of the personal property so so we have i mean we have to discovery of the medical records which are the main items we have to discover any of the lawyers filed in this case we were right i mean i think i can say that the next step about nine months after filing which i think is appropriate progress was expert reports and fact and you were separate mediation is that correct correct and the mediation would have included the brother it would have correct and while the mediation date was pending that's when this  evidence that close the state because it was insolvent any factual finding so the trial court's findings were based were based on the accounting that rice filed and the trial court specifically said that while there were some open questions or the accounting was not perfect none the less it believed that it had sufficient evidence to conclude that the state was insolvent and should be closed wickham are you prepared to proceed i am your honor may proceed when you're writing thank you my name is john w it come from the monaghan law firm i represent rice peppa individually and as the court appointed executor under the will of course which was dated july th two thousand and seventeen horse will was admitted into probate and mrs pepper was appointed the independent executor on december th two thousand and seventeen has state consisted entirely of personal property including but not limited it to clothing firearms garden equipment and gold rolex watch on or about september two thousand and eighteen mrs held a state sale through pack some an estate sale company this state sale netted ten thousand one hundred and ninety seven dollars and zero dollars fifty two cents after pack sums commission this is pep it deposited the proceeds from th state sale into a checking account with p and c bank where it was held pending the court order granting distribution during the state's sale mr puppet's lawn tractor was sold for one thousand two hundred dollars  paxson generated a receipt for that sale and pursuant to the trial court's order a copy of the receipt was a tender to appellant aside from the tractor no other item sold at statesville for more than one thousand dollars and that's where we are getting into how the trial court and what discretion the trial court has in doing accountings and approving accounting so what we the representative since his last accounting and all real and personal estate which is on hand and shall be accompanied by such evidence of the disbursement as the court may require again in the local beginning of the period of time covered by the account the income received during the period of time covered by the account the disbursements made during the time covered by the account the assets on hand at the close of period covered by the account so the question was asked the pellets attorney whether the court made any rulings on what would be required and in fact in march th two thousand and nineteen there was an argument require in this at this point mrs purpose position is that it was very clear because of the amount of the ward or administration of the state which was thirty three thousand dollars and the statutory spousal ward of twenty thousand dollars that there is clearly not enough money in the state for the continued and as the court this court can clearly see very contentious litigation to go on that and so the argument was made and by mrs pepper and i guess the question is what might be raises council is what they're looking for in terms of more detail but i and he argues that there should be some limitation on the amount of detail that he has to give regarding that regarding the sales for  both the firearms as well as the pack some sale and the court at that point does set limitations on what's going on palin argued the local fourteen most local rule fourteen  went on and disagreed with appellant and the local rule does not provide for specific details instead it only requires that the counting be provided the trial court did note that although there is no requirement for specificity that the counting did not list firearms or how many were sold at the end of the hearing the trial court instructed mrs pappas attorney my trial counsel in this to file an amended accounting by the end of april and specifically delineate anything that received a one thousand dollars or more in value so when counsel says he doesn't know why those weren't required that is in fact not true he does know he was at that hearing and the court as they stated in the order actually said that they had to account for anything over a one thousand dollars and in the supplemental accounting mrs peppa indicated that there was a long garden tractor which sold for one thousand two hundred dollars and was sold out of the state receipt evidencing that sale was attached and then the firearms were specifically delineated and how much they were sold for and how much they were excess they complied with the court's order now you know counsel has made much of that all he needs is this all he needs is that and it will ok in fact you know the record as a hold and the amount of attorney's fees that have been expended in this place case clearly shows that that is not true but what we do know is that  the court had the opportunity to review verified accountings by mrs peck but as to what she what she did she did state in that in her objections that at that all the proper property was sold and on march nd she was put on the stand before the trial judge and she was asked whether the state was sole personal property she said yes whether there was an estate sale she said yes whether the only things that weren't sold in the firearms in the state still is firearms and a gold watch she responded yes she was asked whether the counting was true and correct she responded yes and sold for more than a one thousand dollars and she responded the firearms and the lawnmower and everything else was sold by pack some of those things is there any thing else you retain she was asked she responded no was all of horse personal property disposed except for the watch and she responded yes and the interesting part about this case is that is that it would seem from this appeal that they were never opportune offered the opportunity to cross examine and in fact in their own brief after they admit on page nine of their initial brief that the court held a hearing in which she was examined they state rice did not make any representation is to contradict debbie's allegations in the may nd two thousand and nineteen objection to the supplemental accounting about the seven specific pieces of personal property debbie contended were part of the state when forced passed away so she did say that everything was sold by packham and she did say that three she retained nothing in the state other than that the issue is that they had an opportunity to cross examine her so the the issues in this case seem to be they say credibility because she didn't answer something that was not part of the state they could have asked her about her credibility and why she answered that incorrectly there they could have gone through that they did not they could have asked her about the specific art and whether it was sold and they had that opportunity and they did not ask those questions they could ask about the gun sales and how that was conducted they knew about all these things they knew about the pack from sales receipts they could have asked what each item  remembers was sold to a denver asked her any of those questions they had an opportunity to ask her to determine whether it was appropriate for her to make these sales what she did how she relied on pack some to make those sales and none of those sales were made now if we look at what the law is the state of more she did what she was told to by the court the court set the parameters for what  accounting should be for what the inventory is for what the accounting was there was objections she was required to do that counting again in order to to include the firearms and then it was approved because there was no evidence here that there was more money in the state and and clearly if you look at the section regarding closing the state in the spousal ward it says shell close to the state if it outweighs the court had had no reason to keep this estate going on and on sold over a one thousand dollars and exclude those pieces if they weren't in the estate sale in the st place and isn't that the question she was asked specifically and in the in the response she stated and on the stand she was asked if everything of the personal property was sold at the state still she answered yes she was and there's nothing retained she answered it specific on the direct examination in front of the trial judge that those questions were asked so the idea that that you know debbie pepper has come up with with an idea that certain things were sold or are kept out is not appropriate in terms of what the judge heard the judge asked  questions specifically asked in front of them they had that information affidavit it was already on file on may nd two thousand and nineteen the hearing took place with with royce peppa testifying on may nd two thousand and nineteen they if they actually believe that this was could have asked all the questions that your honor is asking and when they had the opportunity they it's asked none of those questions could have asked they could have asked is this specific they had a list of the eight artworks that your say so you know if the tourney when given the opportunity to ask the specific questions when they have the information that is in front of them and we know that they did because they filed an objection does not ask the questions and then now coming before the appellate court and saying saying i never got an opportunity to ask the question he asked if he had the opportunity to fail to ask the question you could have asked about all of those eight pieces of artwork he could have done a cross examination of respect but whether those were included  he is now saying that that affirmatively even though she said that she didn't generally that she had to and specifically answer their objections when they had an attorney at the hearing and that person asked no questions it wasn't that she didn't at answer them or didn't know or anything they didn't ask the questions so they come to the pella court now and says we want ask these questions it to me it boggles the mind that they spent this amount of money and they they failed when they had mrs pepper on this on the stand to ask her one single question about what they just talked about for fifteen minutes before this court or a brief thank you that the closing of the state was not against the manifest weight of the evidence so you know i think the language that the trial court used was the last accounting again is it's not perfect i think there are challenges suggested through the can tested litigation that i can't find cause to stand in front of approval of the county i mean people were not satisfied with with what was going on that is clear they filed objections to everything that was going on they were not happy regarding this but the question remains is the court set the parameters for what mrs pepple was supposed to do and she did it it she provided the amount that was done the court then determined that that since they complied with the court's parameters for what they said that it was appropriate to close it since that was the information before the court can you explain to us a sense counsel had initially indicated they would turn over the receipt why weren't those ultimately turned over because the court determined only that receipts had to be done for the items over one thousand dollars and that's what the courts the council turned over in the nd or the supplemental  a county court set for the parameters and i mean there was an extended argument on march th about what had to be turned over and so we can go through that argument but their argument was that how much do we have to do with the state this small essentially and it's that that the other side argued that you had to turn over everything that you had to provide specific documentation in the court rejected that the court said that that there is no requirement in specificity and that counting was only being done for a supplemental for anything over a one thousand dollars and to include specifics of the gun sales the firearm sales to be included in which the court again had another opportunity if there was an issue regarding at the risk of beating a dead horse here i don't understand why if you have a stack or a receipt and that is the whole ball of wax here why not just tender them i don't understand that you keep saying but that the trial court that different parameters based on the size of this estate it would seem to me it was more attorneys fees to argue why you shouldn't tender what's already in your hand and just go ahead and do it so i mean the judge received the verified report that the pack some which is an independent sales estate sales agency sold the property the proper the personal property in the state it's evidence by her verification there's was no verified objections that had been provided so the counsel at trial argued that they were going around in circles and that he was willing to do it but he wanted the court to set parameters and the court did and those parameters were that he had to turn over receipts over a one thousand dollars and mrs peppa did that all right so there that argument was extensive in front of the court both sides had  had the argument about what should be turned over and why and the court made a ruling right ok so what you bolster that position as to why that was an appropriate course of testify to you have nothing you just can ask her to reiterate well there's nothing else in the estate well you didn't so this artwork or you did sell that artwork because they don't have anything by which to challenge her on cross examination so isn't that something the hollow argument don't believe it is because i believe that the court set the parameters for what was going to be sold and that they had an opportunity to cross examine her on both what they had objected to and the specific are were they on a nd specifically had artwork that they  allege were in the in the state and they could have asked questions about it to ease at least establish that it was part of the state that you know they asked no questions which is is is just as a trial attorney asking no questions about something that you're specifically objecting about nineteen days early makes no sense you know what i'll grant you that there's a some of these things that are occurring in this case challenge your general clark knology of cases but if you don't have any documentation and you  pappa what she did she she testifies i would assume then consistent with what she said on direct and you have nothing to challenge that so i can't really call counsel for not asking questions that simply would have reiterated ambles or her testimony without the receipt to challenge what she testified to and i just keep coming back to this were these parameters reasonable i believe that in a state of this size that the set reasonable parameters as to what was being done and then on verify allegations that there is hundreds of thousands of dollars in art sales is is not appropriate in order for them to do it whether we would have an appeal if all the if if the march th hearing had had turned out that it was everything over five hundred dollars or or or if it was everything turned over the trial judge clearly has discretion in order to determine whether to turn over those receipts and what receipts should have been i you know i think only to make the point again it may not be necessary at this point but that the the key here is that it's not what was asked at that hearing it's that we were prevented from getting the documentary evidence we thought the documentary evidence prior to those hearings we were prevented both  mr cook and in discovery requests and were ultimately prevented from getting at that would have shown without any question what actually was sold in this estate sale and that is ultimately the records we did not directly subpoena pac some for the records however we knew that royce had them and we did subpoena a again mr cooke another a rd party for information about the know what records bryce had about the sale to mr cooke we knew what records he had about the pack some sales because we'd seen the stack of slips and they'd been offered in writing and so it seemed