Estate heir asks court: Let ousted estate administrator pay for fees

A claimant to an estate has asked the Superior Court to hold an ousted administrator liable to pay the attorney’s fees and court costs he incurred in bringing to court the case that eventually resulted in the administrator being kicked out.

Jose C. Cabrera, heir/surviving spouse to the Rita C. Cabrera estate, asked the court to order the reimbursement for all fees and costs he incurred in removing Margaret C. Dela Cruz as estate administrator.

Jose C. Cabrera, through lawyer Robert T. Torres, asked that the Rita Cabrera estate be reimbursed for legal fees paid to former estate counsel, Edward Manibusan and Diane C. Cabrera.

He also asked for reimbursement for legal fees incurred or expended by Mrs. Dela Cruz in preparing the decree of final distribution and the inventory of estate assets.

In addition, he asked the court to order an accounting so that these costs can be determined and repaid to the Rita Cabrera estate.

Torres argued that requiring the estate and Jose C. Cabrera to bear the cost of Mrs. Dela Cruz’s vendetta against her father and some of the other heirs “flies in the face of well-settled law.” He said Mrs. Dela Cruz’s actions were not only of no benefit to the estate but delayed its administration and cost it large sums.

“To allow so would be to reward such contumacious conduct and undermine the integrity of the probate process,” Torres said.

According to court records, the Rita Cabrera estate probate opened in 2005. In 2006, citing the need to protect the rights of all heirs and ensure that the distribution of estate assets proceeded in accordance with law, Jose C. Cabrera filed a motion to remove Mrs. Dela Cruz as administrator of the estate. Last April, the Superior Court granted the motion.

The court ruled that the removal of Mrs. Dela Cruz was warranted on account of her “breaches of her fiduciary duties, intentional disregard for probate law, the possible commission of a crime, the disintegration of trust between the administrator and the heirs, and a showing of favoritism to one or more of the heirs to the detriment of other heirs.”

The court found that since her appointment as administrator, Mrs. Dela Cruz had failed to recognize Jose C. Cabrera as an heir to the estate, despite his status as the decedent’s surviving spouse.

The court noted that despite the plain language of the law and the advice of a lawyer, Mrs. Dela Cruz intentionally violated the probate law by proposing “to empty the family home which her father still lives in and leave him virtually nothing.”

The court stated that in failing to perform an honest and thorough audit of Cabrera Center, Mrs. Dela Cruz further denied the estate money that it is owed.

The court also found outrageous Mrs. Dela Cruz’s conduct in removing the decedent’s remains and relocating them without consulting Jose C. Cabrera.

The court also found that Mrs. Dela Cruz’s failure to abide by probate law and insistence on proceeding in accordance with her personal agenda has unnecessarily embroiled the estate in litigation and subjected estate assets to great expenses.

In Jose C. Cabrera’s motion for attorney’s fees and costs, Torres said that estate resources have been misused for the former administratrator’s biased agenda and that she must bear the costs of that misconduct.