Estate of Kempton
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Kinney, an adjudicated vexatious litigant and disbarred former attorney, obtained leave to pursue an appeal from the final judgment in this probate proceeding. Leave was granted not because Kinney made the necessary threshold showing of merit and absence of intent to harass or delay under Code of Civil Procedure section 391.7, but because the vexatious litigant statute has no application to a party who files an appeal in a proceeding he did not initiate.
Kinney appealed the Final Distribution and Allowance of Fees Order, apparently claiming that the probate court erred in approving the Special Administrator’s decision not to pay him his $1,000 statutory fee, cancellation of an agreement with a prior administrator of the estate to manage and perform various services relating to a house owned by the estate, and approval of a distribution of $329,684.82 out of the sales proceeds of that house to satisfy indebtedness pursuant to certain judgment liens against that property.
The court of appeal affirmed, describing Kinney’s arguments as “incoherent” and a “hodgepodge.” On all but one of the issues presented, Kinney either has no standing to appeal or is barred under the doctrine of claim preclusion; on the remaining claim of error, the probate court acted within its discretion.
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