Legal battles escalate over Tony Hsieh’s newly found will
Two law firms want to shoot down subpoenas from the late Las Vegas mogul Tony Hsieh’s estate, arguing its sweeping demand for records is a “fishing expedition” that seems designed to “harass,” court records show.
In a sign that legal battles over Hsieh’s estate are escalating after the recent discovery of his will, law firms McDonald Carano and Greenberg Traurig filed court papers last week seeking to quash subpoenas that were recently served on them by attorneys for Hsieh’s father, the administrator of his son’s estate.
The two firms represent named executors in the will.
All told, the will’s discovery, and the document itself, have proved a surprising and bizarre turn of events in what was already a protracted legal drama.
Hsieh, the former CEO of online shoe seller Zappos and face of downtown Las Vegas’ economic revival, died in 2020 at age 46 from injuries suffered in a Connecticut house fire. He was unmarried and died with a massive fortune, and his dad’s legal team has stated multiple times in court filings that the younger Hsieh died without a will.
However, McDonald Carano and Greenberg Traurig filed court papers in April with a copy of Hsieh’s seven-page last will and testament — dated March 13, 2015 — and a letter explaining how it was found.
Serving subpoenas
The will was discovered in February in the personal belongings of the late Pir Muhammad, according to the letter, which stated that Muhammad suffered from Alzheimer’s disease and was not aware that Hsieh had died.
The letter did not say when Muhammad died or where he lived, nor did it provide any details about his career or his association with Hsieh.
Hsieh had named Muhammad an executor in the will and gave him “exclusive possession” of the original, in part to prevent anyone from destroying it, the will indicates.
But several people who knew Hsieh have said they never heard of Pir Muhammad, and the Las Vegas Review-Journal found nothing that linked the name to Southern Nevada or confirmed who he was.
Probate and estate-planning lawyers also have said that Hsieh’s will is confusing, clunky and features language they don’t normally see in such documents.
Law firms representing Hsieh’s father are investigating the will. Goldsmith & Guymon recently served subpoenas to landlords who owned Las Vegas apartment complexes where witnesses who signed the will apparently lived, and Holland & Knight served subpoenas to the firms that filed it in court, records show.
In his motion to quash the subpoena, McDonald Carano managing partner George Ogilvie III wrote that the subpoena demands his firm produce “vast swaths of documents without any limitation as to time or scope, many of which are unrelated” to the will.
The subpoena – a copy of which he attached to the filing – contains 71 separate requests.
Among them, it seeks documents relating to: the identity of whoever drafted the purported will; the location of the original letter describing the will’s discovery; the envelope the letter was in when the law firms received it; and the firms’ efforts to verify the will’s validity and locate the witnesses who signed it.
‘Antagonistic approach’
Overall, the subpoena seeks information and documents that are “undoubtedly privileged” and is a “fishing expedition,” Ogilvie wrote in his motion.
Given the “antagonistic approach” that Hsieh’s father and his legal counsel have taken in response to the will being filed in court, their demand for records “appears to be designed more to harass than to obtain relevant information,” Ogilvie alleged.
Greenberg Traurig shareholder Kara Hendricks, in her motion to quash the subpoena to her firm, wrote that the subpoena seeks “irrelevant and unduly burdensome information” and would likely require her firm to produce privileged attorney-client communications.
Instead of moving to admit the will to probate, Hsieh’s father “appears to be using estate assets in an attempt to garner information to challenge” the document, Hendricks wrote.
She also alleged that the subpoenas to the two law firms “appear to be an attempt to harass and place an undue burden and expense” on them.
None of the law firms involved responded to requests for comment Monday.
Lucrative task
Lawyers for Hsieh’s father have taken other steps to investigate the will. Last week, District Judge Gloria Sturman granted attorney Dara Goldsmith’s request for records from the clerk of the court on how the document was filed.
Goldsmith is seeking any information on who filed the will or paid the filing fee; the money order that was used; the identities of court employees who processed the document; any envelopes the will may have been in; and any written correspondence that accompanied the will.
She also wants any video surveillance footage from the Regional Justice Center — including from the cashier station listed on the filing fee receipt — at the time the will was submitted to court.
The yearslong effort to handle Hsieh’s estate has already involved lawsuits, creditors’ claims and detailed accounts of Hsieh’s drug use and erratic behavior in his final year alive.
Managing the mountain of assets he left behind has also been a lucrative task.
Hsieh’s family and its legal team have billed more than $18 million combined in his probate case to oversee the estate, court records show.
Their court-approved payments are drawn from the estate, which was previously valued at more than $520 million, records show.
Contact Eli Segall at esegall@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0342.
