Baird

This is an appeal by Woodrow W. Baird, executor of the estate of Earl H. Briggs, deceased, and C. Duane Mooney, attorney for the executor, from a portion of an order settling the fourth and final account which sustained, in part, objections by beneficiary Esther Woolf to requests for extraordinary executor’s commissions and extraordinary attorney’s fees.

When Briggs died in April 1958 Woodrow Baird, the decedent’s attorney and a legatee under the will, was appointed special administrator. In May 1958 he was appointed executor and letters testamentary were issued.

Briggs had owned and operated a printing business. Before his death he, and after his death, the estate was involved in a series of lawsuits concerning several high-speed inter type machines. Under an agreement not to participate in fees, Baird employed his law partner C. Duane Mooney to represent him in his capacity as executor.

In August 1960 Baird petitioned the court for partial extraordinary executor’s commissions and extraordinary attorney’s fees. Baird alleged extraordinary executor’s commissions totaling $3,700; Mooney claimed extraordinary attorney’s fees totaling $4,375. In an order in September 1960 the…