In re Probate Appeal of Tunick

Syllabus

The plaintiff T appealed to the Superior Court from the decree of the Probate Court approving the payment of attorney's fees to the defendant D for services rendered to certain cotrustees of a trust of which T was a remainder beneficiary. In 2017, T filed the underlying probate appeal, asserting that he was aggrieved by the decree. In 2019, the trial court dismissed the appeal following a trial de novo, concluding that T had failed to demonstrate that he was aggrieved because, inter alia, distribu- tion of the attorney's fees to D was premature in light of a pending forensic accounting. Following the judgment of dismissal, but before the plaintiff filed the present appeal, the successor trustee of the trust, M, filed with the Probate Court a motion for advice, requesting permis- sion to distribute trust funds to D for his attorney's fees. The Probate Court then issued a second decree allowing the distribution to D. T filed another probate appeal to the Superior Court from the second decree, which remains unresolved. Subsequently, T appealed to this court, claim- ing that the trial court improperly concluded that he was not aggrieved by the first probate decree and failed to consider certain trust documents in rendering its judgment. Held that this court concluded that it need not examine the merits of T's claims, the appeal having been rendered moot following the entry of the second probate decree; moreover, if this court were to grant the relief requested by T, it would have been purely academic because the first probate decree, wherein the Probate Court authorized the payment of attorney's fees to D, was superseded by the second probate decree, wherein the Probate Court permitted M to distribute the same funds to D, and, accordingly, the first probate decree was no longer in effect and no practical relief could be afforded to T as to that decree; furthermore, proceedings in the second probate appeal, which encompassed the same claims raised by T in the first proba