Court to Decide Today on Rappaport Administrator

When David Rappaport--the 3-foot-11 actor who appeared in “L.A. Law” and the movie “Time Bandits”--committed suicide last month, his family had no idea that the nightmare would drag on so long and that the aftermath would be so complicated.

Rappaport died without leaving a will, and in the seven weeks since his death, a snag in California probate law has brought trouble ranging from the attempted eviction of his fiancee--Eliza Lende--from the Hollywood Hills home the two shared for five years, to repeated efforts by social workers to claim the actor’s clothes and car for possible sale.

Today, a Los Angeles Superior Court probate commissioner will decide whether the county, which has claimed jurisdiction of the case, must turn the administration of Rappaport’s U.S. estate--estimated by the family’s attorney at $400,000 to $500,000--over to Frankie Leigh, Rappaport’s cousin and business manager, as the actor’s family has asked.

Legally, the estate wound up in the county’s hands for two reasons: Rappaport died without a will, and his heir--the actor’s 14-year-old son, Joseph--is a British citizen. Under state law, a foreigner may not administer the estate of a California resident, and may not even appoint an administrator.

Practically, some observers of the case have suggested that the county--which is typically too overburdened with the estates of poor people who die with no relatives to step in where it doesn’t have to--grabbed onto this case because of its notoriety and because the probate fees from a large estate can help cover the costs of administering smaller ones.

Gene Kent, manager of public administrator operations for the county, said that the county did have to step in.

“We’re kind of a stakeholder, holding onto it until everything can get sorted out at the court level,” Kent said. “The problem is that not one of the arrangements (that the family wants to make) was solidified in writing. So we’re trying to protect all parties.”

Most of Rappaport’s estate--trust funds, savings, investments--was kept in England, according to Jeff Wheeler, the Rappaport family’s attorney. In the United States, he held only enough cash for day-to-day living, along with his house, clothes and car.

The county, Kent said, is trying to make the estate more liquid, to generate cash both to increase the value of the estate and to pay for administrative costs. Accordingly, he said, his office has been attempting to induce Lende to pay rent or leave the house, and would like to sell the actor’s possessions.

To the family, the county’s actions have been insensitive and intrusive.

“The public administrator came to the door to lock up the car and seal it away,” said Leigh. “They turned off the gas, electricity and water, then they turned off the phone and put a notice on the door, a 30-day notice to quit.”

While the county did agree to hold off taking possession of Rappaport’s car, the family’s appeals have fallen mostly on deaf ears, Leigh and Wheeler said.

“I spoke to the counsel for the public administrator, and, frankly, I have not had more discussions with opposing counsel that I have disliked more,” said Wheeler. “It became clear to me that he had this almost proprietary interest in the Rappaport estate, and then he implied that the family’s desire to have Frankie as administrator was really a cover-up for mismanagement of the estate.”

The whole situation could have been avoided had Rappaport prepared a will.

“That’s why you have a will,” said attorney Allan Cutrow, an estate and trust specialist with the firm Mitchell, Silberberg and Knupp. “If you were to ask most probate lawyers about the kind of work we do on the litigation side, at least 60% of it is sorting out the relationships among people who were not provided for in the will.”

For this morning’s hearing, the family has adopted a tactic that has worked in past cases: Leigh, a U.S. citizen, has been appointed as guardian of heir Joseph Rappaport’s U.S. interests by the boy’s mother in England. Wheeler said that he will ask the court to consider her, as guardian, to be legally qualified to administer the estate.

But even if the tactic is successful, the court may choose not to make her administrator until the guardianship becomes permanent in August. The family fears that such a delay would enable the county to force Lende out of the house and to sell Rappaport’s possessions.

“It becomes an issue of personalities versus potential (legal) arguments,” said James Birnberg, a leading estate and probate attorney with the firm Loeb & Loeb, who was interviewed about the case. “As a matter of public policy, given that its role may be temporary, (the county) should not take irreversible steps. You have to look at it from a human point of view.”