Stacia questioned whether her father had signed the will freely and knowingly. (AI image)
An Indiana woman who challenged her father's decision to leave his entire estate to his fiancee has lost her case and now faces a growing legal bill. According to the court document, Stacia Davis was ordered to pay $22,208.18 in attorney fees after failing to prove that her father's will was invalid.
On Wednesday, the Indiana Court of Appeals upheld that decision and ordered her to pay additional fees for the appeal. The final amount of those extra charges has yet to be determined.At the centre of the dispute was Larry Davis, who died in 2022 at the age of 79. In a will signed nearly two years before his death, Larry had decided that everything he owned would go to his fiancee, Michelle Tressler. The couple had been living together since 2012.The decision meant his three adult children, Sherry, Scott and Stacia, would receive nothing unless Tressler died before him. She was still alive when Larry died, leaving her entitled to inherit his estate under the will.Stacia questioned whether her father had made that decision freely and with a clear understanding of what he was signing. Her challenge began a lengthy court dispute.
What happened after daughter challenged will?
Following Larry's death in 2022, the court accepted the will and appointed Tressler to manage his estate.
Stacia challenged it the following month, claiming her father might not have been mentally capable of making a will and raised allegations of pressure and fraud.The case eventually reached a hearing in February 2025, when the court heard from Stacia, Tressler and two women whose signatures appeared on the will.Both witnesses confirmed that the signatures were genuine. Although neither could remember all the details of the signing, their testimony supported the document's validity.Another document presented during the hearing created problems for Stacia's case. It was an affidavit that appeared to come from one of the witnesses and questioned whether she had witnessed the signing. However, the woman told the court that the signature on the affidavit was not hers.Stacia said the document had arrived unexpectedly by post and that she did not know who had sent it. The lower court nevertheless found the affidavit fraudulent and criticised her decision to continue pursuing the case.The court also found that she had not provided acceptable evidence proving her father was mentally incapable of making the will or that Tressler had forced or improperly influenced his decision.
How did the inheritance dispute turn into a $22,208 bill?
The challenge did not only concern who would inherit Larry's property. It also affected the process of managing what he had left behind.In July 2024, the court removed Tressler from responsibility for the estate after finding delays in its administration.
Attorney Robert W. York was appointed to take over as special administrator.As the dispute continued, legal expenses increased. The lower court recorded 431 entries across the two connected cases and found that much of the prolonged litigation was linked to Stacia's actions.Judges also criticised requests for documents that had added to the expenses without producing useful evidence for the case.When the lower court rejected Stacia's challenge in 2025, it decided that she should personally bear part of the legal costs rather than leaving the estate to pay everything.York had sought $26,198.61 in attorney fees. After examining the expenses, the court ordered Stacia to pay $22,208.18. The remaining amount was to be paid from the estate.Stacia challenged this order as well, but the appeals court found that the lower court had sufficient grounds to make her pay.
Why did the appeal make matters worse for the daughter?
Stacia had been represented by a lawyer during the earlier proceedings but handled her appeal herself. Her submissions created another set of problems.The appeals court found that she had included documents that had never been accepted as evidence during the original hearing. Her written arguments also failed to provide several required references to the court records.The judges identified a more serious issue involving the legal cases she cited to support her arguments. Some of those cases did not exist at the references she provided, while others were real but unrelated to the points she was making.
Despite these problems, the court chose to consider her arguments.The judges ultimately agreed with the earlier decision that Larry's will was valid. They also upheld the order requiring Stacia to pay $22,208.18.However, the court went further. It found that her appeal involved serious problems with both the arguments and the way the case had been presented, justifying another award of attorney fees. The case has now been returned to the lower court to calculate how much Stacia must pay for the appeal.