LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — The family of late Zappos founder Tony Hsieh is asking the Nevada Supreme Court to rule on an issue related to the ongoing probate case.
A new filing in the Nevada Supreme Court shows that Hsieh's father, Richard, who has been managing the estate since Tony's death, is questioning the two attorneys that were appointed as co-special administrators per the alleged will.
"The court appointed the two based on nominations in a fake will that has not been admitted to probate, and the [district] court did so even though the Estate already. has an Administrator, Richard Hsieh ("Richard"), who has administered the Estate without issue for the past five years," Hsieh's attorneys state. "More perplexing still, the district court authorized [Robert] Armstrong and [Mark] Ferrario to use the Estate's own resources to "promote" and "defend" the. contested will (the "Purported 2015 Will"). This is every bit as backwards and wrong as it sounds. There is no legal precedent for what the court did."
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They also state the alleged 2015 will "is so defective that their continuing attempt to seek its admission to probate represents a fraud on the Court" and that by appointing Armstrong and Ferrario as special administrators, they have access to confidential information, which could harm the estate.
On Dec. 15, 2025, Richard filed a contest to the 2015 Will and objected to it being submitted to probate. On Jan. 9, 2026, the district court issued a formal written order appointing Armstrong and Ferrario as co-special administrators of the estate.
Hsieh's family said the ruling is causing "immediate chaos".
"The court seemed to think that it could avoid overlapping or conflicting duties and responsibilities by limiting the co-special administrators' authority to promoting and defending the Purported 2015 Will," the filing states in part. "But even in that limited role, the existence of two other co-equal personal representatives will necessarily result in administrative gridlock."
You can read the full filing below.
We have reached out to Armstrong and Ferrario to see if they would like to comment on the latest filing.
Hsieh died in a house fire in Connecticut in November 2020. He was 46 years old. Hsieh's estate is worth an estimated $513 million, and several parties have filed claims seeking a portion of that money over the past couple of years.
In previous court filings, Hsieh's family has maintained that he died without a will, which attorneys argue is still the case.
There has been a lot of mystery and unanswered questions surrounding the alleged 2015 will. Last month, I told you about several experts who told the court they believe the will is fake.
Some of the issues that have previously been brought up include:
- Tony Hsieh's signatures not matching
- Tony Hsieh's name was misspelled multiple times
- Tony Hsieh's calendar did not match up with the times and dates when the alleged will was signed
- None of Tony Hsieh's family, friends, or business associates have ever heard of any connection to anyone named in the will as a witness
- The death certificate of the man who allegedly had the will is generic and can't be fully verified to be real
- Email addresses listed in the alleged will were created after the will was signed and/or didn't exist at the time the will was signed
Another major hurdle has been finding anyone named as a witness to the will being signed or finding the people who claim to have discovered the will.
Executors of the alleged will previously told the district court that none of this matters because the will is "self-proving" — which essentially means it proves its own validity through a sworn statement.
When looking at the Nevada Supreme Court docket, no future hearings are scheduled, as of Friday afternoon.
As for the district court case, the docket shows a hearing is scheduled for Monday.