Breach of fiduciary duty shown.

- Probate court properly revoked letters testamentary, ordered reimbursement to a decedent's estate of excessive expenses, and ordered a settling of the estate's accounts when the decedent's executor committed 17 breaches of fiduciary duty, including failing to wind up the estate and failing to provide the decedent's other child with an accounting. Fowler v. Cox, 264 Ga. App. 880, 592 S.E.2d 510 (2003).

Appellate court applies an abuse of discretion standard in reviewing a probate court's order removing an executor; the relevant question in reviewing a removal order regarding an executor is whether the trial court had grounds to conclude that there was good cause for the removal. In re Estate of Arnsdorff, 273 Ga. App. 612, 615 S.E.2d 758 (2005).

Probate court order removing an executor from an estate and ordering the attorney to forfeit $79,000 in commissions and fees received and costs incurred as executor and attorney for the estate was upheld on appeal because: (1) the record showed that the attorney filed a purported estate accounting six inches thick, which was prepared by the staff and which the attorney showed little familiarity with; (2) the attorney delayed a distribution to a beneficiary by trying to force the beneficiary to create a trust, which was not required by the decedent's will; (3) the attorney filed an erroneous tax return that had to be amended as well as took a deduction the attorney knew was improper; and (4) the attorney incurred unnecessary expenses and fees by showing the decedent's house when the sale of the house was not required by the will. In re Estate of Arnsdorff, 273 Ga. App. 612, 615 S.E.2d 758 (2005).

Because an executor ignored a testator's intent and the directions contained in the testator's will, and consciously failed to seek direction from the courts despite the executor's admitted knowledge that the executor should do so, the trial court properly found that the executor violated the executor's fiduciary duties and forfeited the executor's right to compensation in O.C.G.A. § 53-7-54(a)(7). Cronic v. Baker, 284 Ga. 452, 667 S.E.2d 363 (2008).

Personal representative's wrongful conveyance of the estate's primary asset, a house, to the personal representative was a breach of fiduciary duty. The beneficiary's evidence of the house's rental value authorized the award to the beneficiary of compensatory damages for lost rent under O.C.G.A. §§ 53-7-54 and53-12-193. In re Estate of Zeigler, 295 Ga. App. 156, 671 S.E.2d 218 (2008).

Venue.

- Assuming that O.C.G.A. § 53-7-54(b) created a cause of action against third parties, as the trust created by the statute was a creature of equity jurisdiction, under Ga. Const. 1983, Art. VI, Sec. II, Para. III, venue for such actions was in the county where a defendant resided. Thus, if a contempt petition was filed pursuant to the statute, the motion to transfer venue filed by two lawyers and their law firm should have been granted as neither lawyer resided in the forum county and their law firm was not located in that county. Rader v. Levenson, 290 Ga. App. 227, 659 S.E.2d 655 (2008).