Court Opinion

ID: 9667970
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:59:24.82838+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:42.063127
License: Public Domain

*321BEN Z. GRANT,
Justice, concurring.
I would recommend that the Legislature revisit Section 240 of the Probate Code, Joint Executors or Administrators. Tex. Prob.Code Ann. § 240 (Vernon 1980). I would strongly suspect that most of the time when joint executors are named in a will, the testator intends that these joint executors will be a check on each other. As this case indicates, it does not work that way. Section 240 provides that the executors (or administrators) may act independently of each other. This creates a hydra-headed administration of the estate in which there is no guarantee that there will not be a duplication of effort, as well as each being able to hire an attorney to be paid out of the estate which would result in double attorneys’ fees. (The only exception under Section 240 that requires the signatures of all executors or administrators is in the conveyance of real estate.) I would recommend Section 240 be amended to require that the joint executors or administrators act jointly on all matters involving the estate.
My next concern is in the construction of the law that the attorney retained by an executor or administrator does not represent the estate, but rather represents the executor or administrator. See Huie v. DeShazo, 922 S.W.2d 920 (Tex.1996).
The court in the Hide opinion cited a study that recommended the following:
The fiduciary’s duty is to administer the estate or trust for the benefit of the beneficiaries. A lawyer whose assignment is to provide assistance to the fiduciary during the administration is also working, in tandem with the fiduciary, for the benefit of the beneficiaries, and the lawyer has the discretion to reveal such information to the beneficiaries .... 2
On the basis of precedent, the Texas Supreme Court declined to adopt the approach recommended by this study.
Because most beneficiaries do not have them own attorney and rely on the attorney handling the estate to see that it is properly administrated according to law, I would recommend that the Supreme Court consider changing the legal obligation in accordance with the recommendations in the report.

. Based on "a study by the Section of Real Property, Probate and Trust Law of the American Bar Association entitled Report of the Special Study Committee on Professional Responsibility-Counselling the Fiduciary. See 28 Real Prop., Prob. & Tr. J. 823 (1994).”