MHL ARTICLE 81 - New York State Unified Court System

at the amounts it awarded to the Court Evaluator and medical expert required the matter to be
remitted to the Supreme Court for a hearing, taking into consideration the appropriate factors.
Matter of Doris J., 93 AD3d 726; 940 N.Y.S. 2d 293 (2nd Dept. 2012)
The Appellate Division remitted a decision back to the trial court to set forth a clear explanation of
its determination with respect to an award of fees for accounting services rendered in an Article 81
guardianship because the trial court had limited the accountant's fee to the rate of only $150.00 per
hour without explaining its reason for disregarding the rates utilized by the accountant.
Matter of Reitano v. Department of Social Servs., 90 AD3d 934; 2011 N.Y. App. Div.
LEXIS 9153 (2nd Dept 2011)
The Appellate Division affirmed a lower court's denial of a guardian's motion requesting an award
of attorney's fees nunc pro tunc for the preparation of accountings for 4 prior years. The guardian,
an attorney, had already been paid commissions for her services as guardian and the court found that
she failed to meet the burden of establishing that the services she performed to prepare the
accountings were legal in nature, rather than an administrative function of her responsibilities as
guardian.
Matter of Emanuel A. Towns, an Attorney and Counselor at Law, 75 A.D.3d 93; 901
N.Y.S.2d 68 (2nd Dept. 2010)
An attorney retained by an 89 year old self petitioner on the verge of incapacity was suspended from
practice for 6 months and ordered to make restitution for overcharging his client who was obviously
suffering from dementia. Many services he performed were billed at a rate for legal services which
were in fact not legal services and only non legal tasks incident to the legal services he provided or
billed for excessive amounts of time given the task at hand.
Matter of C.C. 27 Misc.3d 1215A; 910 N.Y.S.2d 761(Sup. Ct. Bronx Cty. 2010)(Hunter, J)
Petitioner's counsel's fee could not be paid until she submitted an Affirmation of Services setting for
what she had done so the court could determine the reasonableness of the fee requested.
Matter of Aida C. (Heckle), 67 A.D.3d 1361; 891 N.Y.S.2d 214 (4th Dept 2009)
Matter remand to trial court for consideration of reasonableness of counsel fees, after hearing, if
necessary, where IP’s attorney was unable to review submissions by counsel for petitioner and trial
court failed to provide concise explanation for its award of such fees.
Matter of Anne M. T., 64 A.D.3d 784; 882 N.Y.S.2d 715 (2nd Dept. 2009)
Appellate Division upwardly modifies order for counsel fees after finding that the trail court had not
provided any analysis for the lower fee and finding that a proper analysis would have resulted in a
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