Legal Question in Administrative Law in California
My children had a guardian ad litem prior to turning 18 years old. They are now 25 and 23 and just received a bill for her services that she apparently forgot to submit before their case closed. Does she have a legal right to send them this bill and are they obligated to pay her.
1 Answer from Attorneys
While I could not find any case law specifically on point, I do note that Code of Civil Procedure section 373.5 says "The reasonable expenses of the guardian ad litem, including compensation and counsel fees, shall be determined by the court and paid as it may order, either out of the property or by plaintiff or petitioner." It might be helpful, then, to go back to the record of the case and see what the court ordered. If this doesn't solve the problem, maybe go back to court and have a judge rule of whether liability has expired due to the passage of time, or under some statute of limitations. Billing this late seems inherently unreasonable, but I admit I'm not an expert here. Another possibility would be to re-ask the question under a "family law" topic heading on LawGuru.
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