Opinion ID: 6498356
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: 30-Day Deadline

Text: Finally, Mr. Gardner argues that because the trial court took fifty days to decide his fee petition when Super. Ct. Prob. R. 308(i)(1) states that the Superior 13 The $54 figure the trial court used when referring to the McDonald’s-related fee requests would include $45 for the half hour spent at the restaurant and $9 for only one of the two trips between the restaurant and the apartment. According to the petition, each of the legs of the round trip took one-tenth of an hour (charged at $9), and it is unclear why the expenses for this entry would not cover both. To make matters more confusing, the fee petition includes what may be a duplicative entry claiming an additional $45 for the half hour of time spent at McDonald’s. The trial court may sort this out on remand. 15 Court “shall enter an order” resolving a request for fees from the Guardianship fund under “within 30 days of the filing of such request,” he is entitled to the full amount requested plus pre-award interest. This court recently considered and rejected these arguments in In re Goodwin, 2022 WL 1670729, and its analysis is controlling here. In Goodwin, the court stated that although Rule 308(i)(1) imposes a thirty-day deadline, the probate rules do not explain the consequence for failure to resolve a fee request within the thirty days, and courts “will not in the ordinary course impose their own coercive sanction.” Id. at  (quoting Dolan v. United States, 560 U.S. 605, 611 (2010)). Here, as in Goodwin, Mr. Gardner “points us to nothing that would authorize or compel us to depart from that baseline rule and impose the novel remedies he now seeks—awarding him a windfall from the public fisc.” Id.; cf. also In re Gardner, 268 A.3d at 858 (rejecting a similar argument where Mr. Gardner was seeking payment from the ward’s estate rather than the Guardianship Fund). This conclusion encompasses Mr. Gardner’s request for pre-award interest 14 as well as for the full amount requested in his petition. 14 We are in any event not persuaded by Mr. Gardner’s contention that his fee petition counts as a liquidated debt and that D.C. Code § 15-108 “mandates prejudgment or pre-award interest for liquidated debt.” D.C. Code § 15-108 states that “[i]n an action . . . to recover a liquidated debt on which interest is payable by contract or by law or usage the judgment for the plaintiff shall include interest on 16