Background
Margarita M. Salcedo Hart, an elderly woman who lost more than one million dollars to online romance scams, was placed under a limited conservatorship in 2017. The Douglas County District Court appointed Melissa Schwartz as limited conservator with access to Salcedo Hart’s financial accounts to monitor for suspicious transactions. The conservatorship order also authorized Schwartz to retain counsel at Salcedo Hart’s expense whenever Schwartz, in her sole discretion, deemed it necessary.
In 2019, Salcedo Hart petitioned both to terminate the conservatorship and to remove Schwartz. The court terminated the conservatorship in 2022 without ruling on the removal petition. That same year, Salcedo Hart filed a surcharge petition alleging Schwartz had breached her fiduciary duty; the court denied it, finding no breach. In 2023, Schwartz petitioned for discharge and for her compensation and costs. The district court granted that petition, awarding Schwartz several hundred thousand dollars covering her fees, attorney fees, expert witness fees, and redaction costs.
Salcedo Hart appealed, arguing she was denied a required hearing on the reasonableness of the award and that various components of the award violated Colorado’s probate compensation statutes.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Appeals affirmed the award in full. On the hearing issue, the court held that Salcedo Hart had waived her statutory argument under § 15-10-604(4), C.R.S. 2025 — which mandates a hearing when compensation is disputed — because she never cited that provision to the district court. Below, she argued only for a discretionary hearing under C.R.C.P. 121, § 1-22(2)(c), which is a distinct ground. Raising a different legal basis for the first time on appeal does not preserve the issue.
On the statutory compensation challenge, the court rejected Salcedo Hart’s argument that § 15-10-602(6) — authorizing reimbursement for good-faith prosecution or defense of a proceeding — is a subcategory of § 15-10-602(1), which authorizes compensation for services rendered on behalf of the estate. The court held that reading § 602(6) as subordinate to § 602(1) would render § 602(6) superfluous, a result that must be avoided under Colorado canons of statutory construction. The two provisions are overlapping but independent bases for compensation.
The court also found no abuse of discretion in the award of over $197,000 in redaction costs. Although Schwartz testified that the redactions “benefitted me as the limited conservator,” the court read that testimony as referencing her role, not personal gain — and, critically, it was Salcedo Hart’s own subpoena that compelled Schwartz to make the redactions in the first place. The court declined to address several other arguments it found undeveloped under C.A.R. 28(a)(7)(B).
Key Takeaways
- A party who requests a discretionary hearing in the trial court cannot pivot on appeal to argue a hearing was statutorily mandatory under a provision never cited below — the grounds must match to preserve the issue.
- Colorado’s § 15-10-602(1) (compensation for estate services) and § 15-10-602(6) (reimbursement for good-faith litigation) are independent, parallel provisions; a conservator need not satisfy § 602(1) to recover under § 602(6).
- A protected person who issues a subpoena compelling a conservator to perform redactions cannot later argue those redaction costs were incurred for the conservator’s personal benefit rather than the estate’s.
- Appellate arguments that consist solely of bare conclusions, without citation to authority or record explanation, will not trigger review by the Colorado Court of Appeals.
Why It Matters
This decision clarifies the relationship between two frequently litigated provisions of Colorado’s Uniform Probate Code compensation framework. By holding that § 15-10-602(6) is a freestanding authorization — not a subset of § 15-10-602(1) — the court makes it easier for conservators and other fiduciaries to recover litigation costs incurred in good-faith proceedings, regardless of whether those costs would independently qualify as services rendered on behalf of the estate. Practitioners should be aware that this reading may increase the litigation-cost exposure of protected persons who bring surcharge or removal petitions that ultimately fail.
The waiver ruling also carries a practical lesson: counsel seeking a mandatory hearing on fee reasonableness in Colorado probate proceedings must invoke § 15-10-604(4) explicitly in the trial court. Framing the request as discretionary under C.R.C.P. 121 forfeits the statutory argument on appeal, even if the factual dispute over reasonableness is the same.