## Facts

- Artist Robert Rauschenberg devised his entire residuary estate to the Robert Rauschenberg Revocable Trust.
- The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation was the trust’s sole remainder beneficiary.
- Bennet Grutman, Bill Goldston, and Darryl Pottorf served as trustees and managed the trust for several years after Rauschenberg’s death while assets were being transferred to the Foundation.
- During the trustees’ administration, the trust’s value increased from about $605,645,595 to about $2,179,000,000 (approximately $2.2 billion).
- The trust instrument did not set trustee compensation and provided no method for calculating fees.
- The trustees petitioned the trial court for compensation, asking that fees be set using the “reasonable compensation” factors described in West Coast Hospital Ass’n v. Florida National Bank of Jacksonville, and sought roughly $51–$55 million.
- The Foundation opposed, arguing the court should apply the attorney-fee “lodestar” method (reasonable hours multiplied by a reasonable hourly rate) and contended the trustees should receive about $375,000.
- Both sides presented testimony supporting their preferred methodology.
- The trial court rejected the lodestar approach, applied the West Coast factors, and awarded the trustees $24,600,000.
- The Foundation appealed the fee order to Florida’s Second District Court of Appeal.

## Issues

1. When a Florida trust instrument is silent on trustee compensation, must a court calculate compensation using the attorney-fee lodestar method, or may it determine “reasonable compensation” under Fla. Stat. § 736.0708(1) using the West Coast multi-factor analysis?
2. Did the trial court commit reversible error by awarding $24.6 million in trustee compensation after applying the West Coast factors?

## Decision

- The Second District Court of Appeal affirmed the $24,600,000 fee award in full.
- The court held that trustee compensation under Fla. Stat. § 736.0708(1), when the trust is silent, is determined using the West Coast reasonableness factors, not the Rowe/Quanstrom lodestar approach used for attorney’s fees.
- The court concluded the trial court correctly refused to compute trustee fees through hourly billing and properly treated the fee amount as a fact-driven reasonableness determination.

## Legal Principles

- When a trust does not provide for trustee compensation, Fla. Stat. § 736.0708(1) authorizes “reasonable compensation.”
- Florida courts assess the reasonableness of trustee compensation using the factors identified in West Coast Hospital Ass’n v. Florida National Bank of Jacksonville, which consider the nature and extent of the services, responsibility assumed, risks, results obtained, and other circumstances of the administration.
- The attorney-fee lodestar method (hours × rate), developed for fee-shifting and attorney-compensation disputes, is not required for determining trustee compensation absent statutory or trust-instrument direction.
- A trial court’s determination of reasonable trustee compensation is reviewed with deference when the court applies the correct legal standard and the award is supported by the record.

## Conclusion

Robert Rauschenberg Foundation v. Grutman holds that when a Florida trust is silent on trustee fees, trustee compensation under § 736.0708(1) is set by the West Coast multi-factor reasonableness analysis rather than the attorney-fee lodestar method; applying that standard, the Second DCA affirmed the trial court’s $24.6 million compensation award to the trustees who administered the trust during the period in which its value rose from about $605.6 million to about $2.179 billion.


Robert Rauschenberg Foundation v. Grutman, 198 So. 3d 685 (2016)