Estate of Schuster

Loeb & Loeb, Andrew S. Garb and Terri R. Brownlow for Objectors and Respondents.

OPINION

OSBORNE, J. [*]

We consider the application of an amendment to a statute authorizing fees for an attorney for the executor or administrator of an estate. The amendment authorizes reimbursement from the estate for fees for opposing a contest of the will, filed before the will is admitted to probate. We hold the amendment is applicable to cases pending on appeal after the effective date of the amendment, and accordingly reverse the denial of fees.

Stella Schuster died on March 31, 1982. She left two surviving relatives, a niece, Sandra Weissberger, and a nephew, Robert Grubel, and an estate valued at about $800,000. Her 1978 will named her long-time friend and attorney, Bernard Shafer, as executor. [1]

Mrs. Schuster made specific bequests to Weissberger, Shafer, and nine friends, and named eight charities as equal beneficiaries of the residue of her estate. [2] That residue was worth over $400,000, more than half the estate.

On April 2, 1982, Shafer, as the executor named in the will, filed a petition for probate of the will. On April 29, 1982, Grubel filed a contest of the will. [3]…