Representative Cases

Practice Areas: Probate Litigation, Judicial Determinations of Heirship

Description: We represented the sisters, nieces, and nephews of a decedent in an estate valued at approximately $4 million, consisting of real property, debts owed to the decedent, personal property, and cash. Two individuals filed competing heirship applications, claiming to be the decedent’s common-law spouse and equitably adopted daughter. If successful, these claims would have significantly reduced, or even eliminated, our clients’ inheritance.

Our Representation: We filed a competing application to determine heirship identifying only the siblings, nieces, and nephews of the decedent as the heirs of the estate and specifically denying the common-law marriage and adoption by estoppel claims. We submitted written discovery to the opposing parties, issued subpoenas to obtain decedent’s tax, cremation, insurance, and financial records, and conducted depositions of the purported common-law husband and equitably adopted daughter.  Throughout, our attorneys remained in close communication with our clients, including traveling to Mexico to meet with several of them.

Outcome: Following a two-day mediation, the parties reached a settlement providing for appointment of a third-party administrator and awarding our clients a majority share of the estate.

Practice Areas: Trust Litigation, Breach of Fiduciary Duty

Description: Our clients were beneficiaries of a trust funded by their father, with their sister serving as trustee. The trust’s primary assets included a family ranch and a residence occupied by the trustee. Despite a requirement to distribute assets upon the father’s death, the trustee failed to act for four years and provided no information regarding the trust’s finances or the status of its administration. Of principal concern to our clients was the preservation of the ranch, which is where their parents were buried.

Our Representation: Our firm demanded a formal accounting of trust assets from the trustee. When the trustee failed to comply, we filed suit seeking removal of the trustee, appointment of a successor, and injunctive relief, along with claims for breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, and conversion. During the course of discovery, we obtained bank statements indicating that the trustee was comingling trust funds with funds in her personal bank account. Assessing that this evidence could be used as leverage against the trustee in settlement negotiations, we scheduled the case for mediation.

Outcome: At mediation, the parties reached a settlement awarding the ranch to our clients and the less valuable residence to the trustee.

Practice Areas: Power of Attorney Litigation, Breach of Fiduciary Duty

Description: While undergoing cancer treatment, our client moved from Maryland to San Antonio at her daughter’s request. As an expression of gratitude, she then helped to finance the construction of a new home for her daughter and resided in a detached suite behind the house. Within months of her arrival in San Antonio, the daughter convinced our client to grant her power of attorney, which she then used to take control of our client’s finances. Over the course of the following year, our client repeatedly requested to see copies of the statements for her bank accounts, and the daughter refused, telling her only that “she shouldn’t worry because everything is taken care of.” When our client pushed the issue, the daughter kicked her out of the very house which she helped to finance and moved her into an assisted-living facility. Later that same day, the daughter transferred over $300,000 from our client’s bank account into her own account. Our client made it clear at the onset that she did not want to ruin her daughter’s life and retained our firm with the limited objective of recovering the stolen funds.

Our Representation: We filed suit asserting claims for breach of fiduciary duty, conversion, common-law fraud, fraud by nondisclosure, and money had and received. We conducted written discovery and issued subpoenas for bank and credit card records to determine the full extent of the misconduct. Upon further review of client’s bank statements, prior to the $300,000 transfer the daughter had already stolen over $130,000 from our client’s account, buying, among other things, farm animals, a tractor, and an expensive birthday gift for her husband.

Outcome: Faced with overwhelming evidence and concerned about the impact on her employment, the daughter agreed to repay all misappropriated funds and entered into a payment plan to buy out our client’s interest in her house.

Practice Areas: Probate Litigation, Will Contests

Description: Our client was the sole intestate heir of his deceased brother’s estate.  Approximately three weeks before his death, the decedent executed a purported will giving the entirety of his estate – a house, some vehicles, and approximately $250,000 cash – to his neighbor, a much younger woman who claimed that she and decedent were “madly in love.” The neighbor was known to purchase copious amounts of alcohol for decedent, who was a known alcoholic suffering from several related health complications. On the night of decedent’s death, his friend – having been unable to reach him by phone – went to visit decedent in person at his house. When he arrived, the neighbor answered the door and reluctantly let him in to speak to decedent.  Throughout the friend’s visit, the neighbor, who acted defensive and nervous, never let decedent out of her presence and would frequently cut off and “correct” the decedent when he attempted to speak. The friend noticed that decedent was extremely intoxicated and, sensing that something was wrong, recorded the conversation.  The next morning decedent was found unconscious and covered in blood on his bedroom floor, ostensibly after taking a hard fall during the night. The neighbor hired an attorney and filed an application to probate the decedent’s will just a few weeks later.

Our Representation: We filed a will contest on behalf of our clients and requested that our client be appointed as temporary administrator for the duration of the contest.  After our client was appointed, we used his powers as temporary administrator to obtain bank statements for the decedent’s bank accounts and credit cards. These statements indicated that decedent’s spending increased significantly during the last two months of his life and contained transactions, withdrawals, and transfers that were highly unusual.  Using that information, we sent subpoenas to the businesses relating to the most questionable transactions. Through these, we were able to obtain (1) Video recordings from the bank ATM machine in which the neighbor is seen to withdraw $1,000 a day for twelve straight days from decedent’s checking account; (2) surveillance videos from two pawn shops showing the neighbor and her boyfriend purchasing jewelry worth over $2,000 using decedent’s credit card; (3) call notes from an online merchant indicating that an employee had called decedent’s house to verify a purchase, only to have the neighbor answer the phone, falsely identify herself as decedent’s niece, and then falsely claim that he was unable to speak to them because he didn’t speak English; and (4) receipts from eight online retailers for purchases of women’s clothing, children’s shoes, and other items using decedent’s credit card, but with the neighbor’s email address and phone number identified as the point of contact. After receiving these documents, we deposed the neighbor for six hours, and she was unable to provide plausible explanations for any of these transactions, stating repeatedly that “this is what he wanted” and “she was the only one to take care of him.” Over the course of the will contest, the neighbor sold decedent’s band new baby blue Corvette. We located the Corvette for sale on Craigslist approximately one year after the contest was filed and confronted the seller, who in turn admitted that the neighbor had sold it to him for cash after representing that the vehicle was hers. The purported buyer of the Corvette did not have a receipt, vehicle title, or other evidence that he purchased the vehicle legitimately.

Outcome: Faced with overwhelming and incontrovertible evidence, the neighbor agreed to withdraw her will from probate. We were also able to recover the Corvette for our client by hiring a repo company to tow the vehicle from the Craigslist seller’s house to a nearby storage unit. Our client received approximately $650,000 from the decedent’s estate.

Practice Areas: Will Contests, Probate Litigation

Description: Our client was disinherited due to her brother’s undue influence over their father who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease, resulting in a new will which excluded her.

Our Representation: We contested the will on behalf of our client and submitted written discovery requests to the defendant. We negotiated a settlement agreement with opposing counsel in which our client would receive her full share of the estate if we could convince all 13 of the trust beneficiaries to sign the agreement. We navigated complex family dynamics and negotiated with beneficiaries living abroad, even visiting one beneficiary in the prison where he was incarcerated, to try and convince them to sign an agreement being presented to them by an attorney whom they’ve never met and from which they received no personal benefit.

Outcome: After over three years of negotiating with the various beneficiaries and three iterations of a proposed settlement agreement, we procured the required signatures and our client received her full share of the estate, worth approximately $1 million.

Practice Areas: Probate, Judicial Determinations of Heirship

Description: Our client was informally adopted by her aunt at age two and raised as her daughter. Her biological mother was largely absent. After her aunt died without a will, our client sought recognition as an heir under the doctrine of adoption by estoppel.

Our Representation: We filed an application to determine heirship asking the court to recognize that our client was decedent’s adopted daughter despite having never gone through the formal legal adoption process.  One of the decedent’s biological children contested our claim. At trial, we presented documentary evidence and witness testimony establishing the elements required to prevail on an adoption by estoppel claim. 

Outcome: The court found that adoption by estoppel was established, declared our client one of four children, appointed her dependent administrator, and established her claim to receive a one-fourth share of the decedent’s estate. Most importantly to our client, she finally obtained formal recognition of the mother-daughter relationship that she had with the decedent.

Practice Areas: Probate, Probate of a Will, Independent Administration

Description: Our client sought to probate the will of his recently deceased friend. The will was a single paragraph drafted without counsel and executed one week before death. It did not clearly identify itself as a will, contained ambiguous distribution provisions, failed to name an executor or provide for independent administration, lacked a residuary clause, was not self-proved, and was not signed by disinterested witnesses.

Our Representation: We identified multiple defects that could prevent admission to probate and prepared a memorandum for the court addressing those issues with supporting case law and statutory authority. At the hearing, we presented additional evidence to address the court’s concerns.

Outcome: The court admitted the will to probate and appointed our client as independent administrator with will annexed. The estate was distributed in accordance with the will.

Practice Areas: Probate, Judicial Determinations of Heirship, Independent Administration

Description: Our client’s father died in San Antonio without leaving a written will for an estate containing several houses, a vacant lot, a bank account, and two vehicles. During our initial consultation, our client indicated that he was his father, the decedent, was married to his mother for forty years until her death just a couple of years earlier. The client also indicated that he was his father’s only child. He retained us to file applications for a judicial determination of heirship and to request that the court appoint the client as the independent administrator of his father’s estate.

Our Representation: Our preliminary review of public and genealogical records indicated that the decedent had a total of six children with four different women. All the children were born during decedent’s marriage to our client’s mother, and – miraculously – the decedent had been able to maintain his relationship with the children throughout their lives. The decedent was listed as the father on all but one of the children’s birth certificates, and several of the children were able to produce photos of them with the decedent, as well as Christmas and other holiday cards that they had received from the decedent over the years.  The sixth child was subsequently adopted but provided DNA evidence to prove that he was the decedent’s son. The children had been born in four different states, and two of the daughters even shared the same first name (the family referred to them as “Priscilla of the North” and “Priscilla of the South”).

Outcome: We obtained a judicial determination of heirship confirming all six children as the decedent’s intestate heirs and were successful in having our client appointed as the estate’s independent administrator. We then assisted with full estate administration, including inventory, asset sales, creditor resolution, and distribution.