Opinion ID: 1736103
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 25

Heading: Approval of Tipp's Attorney Fees

Text: On cross-appeal, Maynard argues that the county court erred in ordering Tipp's attorney fees to be paid from the trust. On appeal, a trial court's decision awarding or denying attorney fees will be upheld absent an abuse of discretion. Rapp v. Rapp, 252 Neb. 341, 562 N.W.2d 359 (1997). When an attorney fee is authorized, the amount of the fee is addressed to the discretion of the trial court, whose ruling will not be disturbed on appeal in the absence of an abuse of discretion. Id. Attorney fees and expenses will ordinarily be allowed a trustee where they were incurred for the benefit of the estate. Rapp v. Rapp, supra ; Linn v. Linn, 146 Neb. 666, 21 N.W.2d 283 (1946). In a judicial proceeding involving the administration of a trust, the court, as justice and equity may require, may award costs and expenses, including reasonable attorney's fees, to any party, to be paid by another party or from the trust that is the subject of the controversy. Neb.Rev. Stat. § 30-3893 (Cum. Supp. 2006). Where a trustee's defense of his or her acts is substantially successful, the trustee is ordinarily entitled to recover the reasonable costs necessarily incurred in preparing his or her final account and in defending it against objections. See Rapp v. Rapp, supra . In this case, Maynard contends that the attorney fees and expenses Tipp incurred as a result of Maynard's legal action serve as a detriment to the estate, not as a benefit. He argues that due to her failures as trustee, the county court removed Tipp as trustee and required her to return to the trust the life insurance proceeds, bank accounts, bonds, treasury notes, and personal property. In its oral pronouncement removing Tipp as trustee, the court stated: The real problem in this case was the Trustee was put in the really bad position of trying to decipher which assets were hers individually and those which belonged to the Trust. Even if she did everything properly, it still has that same appearance that there's always something to have been done wrong. And I think that the one part that caught my attention the most was when she was asked directly by one of her siblings about certain assets that were hers from some of those p.o. death accounts; her response was that it was none of his business what was left to her. Well, that is exactly what engenders the kind of problems we've had here today. It's not the open and fair treatment that a beneficiary would expect from a trustee and certainly leaves everyone the impression that something is being hidden. I don't know if anything ever was. I just don't know. And that's probably the real problem we have with all the beneficiaries here. I'm not saying she did anything wrong; quite the opposite. I'm saying that she just didn't make a full disclosure, so everybody would see that she did nothing wrong. My real problem is that after our November 22nd hearing, we have a problem with what the Trustee then did, which was nothing. The interim accounting was not produced and filed; the bond was not filed until December 13th, which was almost a month after that. I find that to be something that I can't excuse. Although in deciding to remove Tipp as trustee it appears that the county court was motivated by Tipp's lack of urgency, it did not find an intentional breach of her fiduciary duties. The record discloses that Tipp did marshal those assets which she believed to be trust property and caused partial distributions to be made to the trust beneficiaries. We conclude that the court did not abuse its discretion in ordering that Tipp's attorney fees incurred while acting as successor trustee be paid from the trust.