In re Carol Matteson

Two years ago Carol Matteson died intestate leaving a couple of trailers worth $40k each and numerous small bank accounts and a pension fund.  Her son Danny Houlihan went to open his mother’s estate because his sister had gained control over the trailers and emptied out the bank accounts–for herself.

Son Danny is elderly, indigent and disabled.  He could not find or afford an attorney to handle his mother’s estate.  So he filed to open up an estate before Judge Malone who told him to get an attorney several times, but no attorney would touch the estate because it was under a $100k and the legal fees to recover small amounts of money stolen would exceed the amounts recovered.

Only Justice Hyman showed any real sense in all of this and wrote a stinging dissent that closing the door to the courthouse for perhaps several thousand…