Tentative Ruling: Estate of Mary Jane Freitas

Case Number

25PR00240

Case Type

Hearing Date / Time

Tue, 10/13/2026 - 09:00

Nature of Proceedings

Petition for Preliminary Distribution

Tentative Ruling

Probate Notes

Appearances required.

The following is noted for the Court at the hearing:

Assignment to Heir Hunter is grossly unreasonable under Probate Code section 11604.  Chandra Lauer and Andrea Meza both assigned 15% of their share in the estate each to “American Research Bureau” for heir hunting services performed.  The judicially admitted value of the estate is $3,084,757, and the two distributees’ shares are each 1/30 of that value, making each of those shares $102,824.20. This means that the fee paid to the heir hunter at issue, if approved by the Court, will be $30,847.26.

Heir hunting services are usually contracted in two ways: 1) the heir hunter is contracted to perform the search of an heir at a specific hourly or flat rate, and submits a bill for their actual performed work; 2) the heir hunter performs the work sua sponte by reviewing cases where next of kin will take, contacts the persons they identify, and then holds the information obtained from their sua sponte research hostage until an heir contracts for a contingency fee to reveal the information.  As a result of historical abuses of the second method by heir hunters in the past, our Legislature passed the predecessor to Probate Code section 11604, and updated that section in 1990 when it overhauled the Probate Code.   

Under the current iteration of section 11604, heir hunting services are reviewed by the Court for reasonableness.  While doing so, the court must accord much stricter scrutiny to the fairness of the consideration than would be the case under ordinary contract principles. (Citing Estate of Boyd (1979) 98 Cal.App.3d 125, 131 [“And the courts have recognized that the probate judge is empowered to give much stricter scrutiny to the fairness of consideration than would be the case under ordinary contract principles.”].)

Probate Code section 11604(c)(1) uses the term “grossly unreasonable” without definition. Our Supreme Court tackled an argument against the breadth of discretion the term grants trial courts in a case involving the predecessor statute of Probate Code section 11604, which was incorporated into 11604 when passed by the legislature:

Wiley next contends that section 1020.1 is unconstitutional because it is too indefinite in that the words ‘grossly unreasonable’ therein contained are not defined. He argues that those words are so indefinite as to make the application of the statute in violation of due process. Questions of negligence, unreasonable restraint of trade, probable cause, reasonable doubt, and preponderance of evidence and the like are usually questions of fact. The term ‘grossly unreasonable’ would seem to fall within the same category, and as here applied presents a question of fact. The section is therefore not so indefinite as to make its application a violation of due process.

(Burchell v. Strube (1955) 43 Cal.2d 828, 837.)

Since “grossly unreasonable” is the legal standard necessary to rescind or modify the parties’ agreement, and since that term has been held to be purposely broad, trial courts can look for guidance in cases where agreements have been found to be grossly unreasonable, but need not rely upon them as long as a factual determination shows substantial evidence of objectively unequal terms in the agreement, or unequal circumstances leading up to the agreement (i.e. completely one-sided bargaining power).

In this case, the heir hunter service at issue appears to have been conducted sua sponte, not by prior agreement for an hourly rate.  The agreement contains a clause that the heir must relinquish 15% of their share of the estate each for the knowledge the heir hunter obtained from its, apparently, sua sponte research.  The result is that the two heirs at issue are to relinquish $15,423 of their share of the estate, or $30,847.26 total, for work that has not been submitted to the Court for review.  This, on its face, is grossly unreasonable, because it is unknown what effort was spent to obtain the information held hostage by the heir hunter before relinquishing that information to the heir, and thus, it is unknown whether the time spent on the effort was multiplied for each heir, or overbilled because the same time spent finding one heir actually revealed the other heir with no further effort. (i.e. whether a genealogical search revealed both heirs for the same effort, or extra effort was necessary to find the other heir after the first was discovered.)

Accordingly, the Court should either deny the request for 15% each, and only award 15% total, or set a further hearing allowing the heir hunter to submit their billing statements for approval.