In our practice, we sometimes experience feuding family members in connection with administration proceedings in Surrogate’s Court. But when does acrimony get so severe that courts will strip the family members of the ability to act as administrators of an intestate estate? In an instructive recent case reported in the New York Law Journal, Surrogate Lopez Torres of the Kings County Surrogate’s Court in Brooklyn held that the animosity exhibited by feuding family members was so significant that none of them should be appointed administrator. Estate of Matthews, File Number 2013-1693/A, decided August 28, 2017, reported in the N.Y.L.J. September 8, 2017 at page 21. The Court concluded that even though mere hostility may not disqualify the petitioning distributees from serving, pervasive friction tending to interfere with the proper administration of an estate would preclude the issuance of Letters of Administration. The Court granted letters to the Kings County Public Administrator instead of the family members.