Bruno

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

The trial court held a 13-day court trial on the bifurcated issue of whether the trust instrument at issue was invalid as a forgery. After the trial court found that the trust instrument had not been forged, it heard Respondents’ motion for attorneys’ fees, and considered the memorandum of costs offered by Respondents, as well as Lynne’s motion to strike or tax costs. In ordering Lynne to pay fees and costs, the trial court indicated it considered the evidence from the trial proceedings in addition to the parties’ pleadings.3 We glean the following evidence relevant to the attorneys’ fees and cost orders from the record created during the trial regarding the validity of the trust instrument.

2 As several of the parties and lay witnesses share the same last name, we will refer to them by their first names. We refer to non-family and expert witnesses by their surnames. 3 At the trial, the court heard testimony from Lynne and her husband, William Bruno, Jane and her husband, James Hopkins, Gwen, Stephen Wurzburg, an attorney who did work for James Francis’s employer, as well as expert witness testimony from Lloyd Cunningham, William J. Flynn,…