In Re: The Conservatorship Of Mary Ruth Davis Hudson

In this conservatorship action, three of the conservatee’s five adult children filed a petition for conservatorship over the conservatee in May 2015 and subsequently filed an emergency petition for conservatorship in June 2015. Following a hearing, the conservatorship court granted the emergency petition, naming one of the petitioners as conservator over the conservatee’s property and one of the petitioners as conservator over the conservatee’s person. The conservatee’s two non-petitioning children subsequently filed a motion in opposition to the conservatorship and requested that it be dissolved. The conservatee then filed an answer to the petition and motion to dismiss the conservatorship. Following various subsequent motions and a hearing conducted in September 2015, the conservatorship court entered an order in October 2015, inter alia, appointing East Tennessee Human Resources Agency (“ETHRA”) as an emergency interim conservator over the conservatee’s property but maintaining the originally named petitioner as conservator over the conservatee’s person. The conservatorship court subsequently memorialized these appointments as permanent in an order entered in December 2015. Upon motions for attorney’s fees filed by the petitioners’ counsel in January 2016, the conservatorship court found that the attorney’s fees requested were reasonable and granted them in an order entered in March 2016. On March 29, 2016, ETHRA filed the last of three successive inventory and property management plans. The conservatee died on May 2, 2016. Upon multiple motions requesting fees, the conservatorship court conducted a hearing and subsequently entered an order on June 21, 2016, inter alia, awarding reasonable fees and expenses to the attorney ad litem, the conservator of the person, and the petitioners’ counsel and former counsel. ETHRA filed a motion to enter final accounting on August 25, 2016, and concomitantly filed a motion requesting $9,112.50 in fees for the services of its representative agent. In September 2016, the petitioners’ counsel filed additional requests for attorney’s fees, and in October 2016, ETHRA’s counsel filed a motion for attorney’s fees. On October 6, 2016, ETHRA filed a motion to close the conservatorship. The petitioners subsequently filed an objection to the final accounting, and the two non-petitioning children filed separate objections to the petitioners’ supplemental motions for attorney’s fees filed subsequent to the conservatee’s death. Following two hearings, the conservatorship court entered an order on March 28, 2017, granting ETHRA’s motion to close the conservatorship and motions for its representative’s fees and attorney’s fees. The conservatorship court declined to consider the petitioners’ pending supplemental motions for attorney’s fees, referring those to the probate court in a subsequent order. The conservatorship court also referred any claims arising from the petitioners’ objections to the final accounting to the probate court. The petitioners have appealed, asserting improper transfer to probate court of their pending motions requesting attorney’s fees, a lack of itemization of the services provided by the ETHRA representative, and deficiencies in the final accounting. Having determined that the conservatorship court improperly transferred to the probate court the petitioners’ motions for attorney’s fees without making necessary findings of fact and improperly closed the conservatorship without making findings of fact concerning the petitioners’ objections to the final accounting, we vacate those portions of the judgment. We affirm the undisputed grant of attorney’s fees to ETHRA’s counsel. We remand for entry of findings of fact and conclusions of law concerning the petitioners’ objections to the final accounting and concerning whether the attorney’s fees requested in the petitioners’ counsel’s pending attorney’s fee motions were incurred in relation to the conservatorship and, if so, whether reasonable attorney’s fees should be granted upon each of these motions. We also direct the conservatorship court to enter an order on remand directing ETHRA to present a detailed explanation of the basis for its representative’s claim for fees and expenses for the conservatorship court’s consideration based upon the factors provided in Tennessee Code Annotated § 34-1-112(a) (2015).