Opinion ID: 2382615
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: The district court abused its discretion in approving the adoption-related expenditures without a thorough inquiry into the fees, costs, and expenses and without sufficient evidence establishing the reasonableness of the fees, costs, and expenses.

Text: ¶ 37 The evidence before the district court supporting the $147,289.42 paid in connection with this adoption included: 1) the prospective adoptive parents' affidavit with an attached contract with the second law firm and the time records from those attorneys; 2) prospective adoptive parents' amended affidavit disclosing a private investigator's fee of $13,000.00 without any contract or time records attached thereto; 3) the prospective adoptive parents' addendum summarizing the private investigator's services; 4) the first law firm's affidavit disclosing fees, costs, and expenses, without any contracts, time records, receipts, or other proof of payments attached thereto; and 5) testimony from an attorney with the first law firm admitting that she did not bring her contract with the prospective adoptive parents to the hearing, that the $20,000.00 flat fee is her standard fee for an adoption, whether contested or not, and that the prospective adoptive parents did not ask for a refund when they hired the second law firm and she did not offer to refund any of the $20,000.00 fee. The record on appeal contains the summaries of the second law firm's time records which the public defender prepared to demonstrate the excessive charges. But, as detailed below, the evidence in the record on appeal is insufficient support for the district court's finding of reasonableness of the expenditures for fees, costs, and expenses, and this case must be remanded.