Evidence – Judicial Notice of Documents 

Posted: 1:00 am Mon, February 8, 2010
By admin
Tags: Evidence

It is error for a District Court to take judicial notice of non-record documents that the parties have not had an opportunity to challenge or address.

Thus, in this case where the guardians and conservators of a non-indigent ward challenge the District Court’s order disallowing their accounts and certain fees and expenses paid to them out of the estate, the District Court erred in considering sua sponte the Service Fee Policy setting the appropriate fees to be charged when a guardian represents an indigent ward in Aitkin County and the Standards of Practice promulgated by the Minnesota Association of Guardianship and Conservatorship.

Although the District Court had authority to review and disallow on its own initiative accounts that were not proper, to disallow fees and expenses, and to order the payment of those amounts to the estate of the ward, we remand for additional, specific findings.

Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded.