Elderly Couple Forced into State Custody

[MTPorcupine3]

http://www.myfoxdfw.com/dpp/news/investigative/Elderly_Couple_Forced_into_St

[Ogre]

From the article:

The state has the responsibility to make sure the Kidds are safe.

There's your problem, right there. I would say that the vast majority of people willingly give the power to the state so the state can protect people from themselves. Even the article, while complaining about the case, still advocates that the states job is to protect us from ourselves.

Huh. Why did an image from the movie, "I, Robot" just come to mind -- the ending, where the robots kill and maim people to "protect" them.

[Raineyrocks]

http://www.myfoxdfw.com/dpp/news/investigative/Elderly_Couple_Forced_into_St

This is horrible! 

I wonder, does it have to be a family member that would help them with organizing their finances?   If her neighbor is her best friend, I'm wondering if she could do it.   

Heck, I'd do it for them.

[Pat McCotter]

http://www.myfoxdfw.com/dpp/news/investigative/Elderly_Couple_Forced_into_St

This is horrible! 

I wonder, does it have to be a family member that would help them with organizing their finances?   If her neighbor is her best friend, I'm wondering if she could do it.   

Heck, I'd do it for them.

Judge Weldon Copeland ... said he would welcome a neighbor or family member to serve as a guardian but no one has come forward. The state is the last resort.

[KBCraig]

Judge Weldon Copeland ... said he would welcome a neighbor or family member to serve as a guardian but no one has come forward. The state is the last resort.

Except it sounds like their neighbors, friends, and former employer are all trying to help, but find the door slammed in their faces.

Did you catch the update at the end? The state is selling their house.
http://www.myfoxdfw.com/dpp/news/investigative/Elderly_Couples_House_Set_for

[Pat McCotter]

Yep.I haven't seen anything on it, yet, today.

[FreelanceFreedomFighter]

And from the article about the state selling their house (for less than it's worth btw):

Probate Judge Weldon Copeland will not comment about the Kidd's case but we know he approved the appointment of a financial guardian, Michael Taylor of Greenville, Texas. The state confirms Taylor is not a registered guardian in Texas.

Which makes me immediately want to know what connection Taylor has to Copeland? And what interest does Taylor/Copeland have in wanting the Kidds' house for themselves? And why has Copeland been allowed to get away with not giving any of the case information to the Department that oversees this type of thing... or the Senator who is overseeing that agency?

Looks like another government scam to steal from those who are least capable of fighting back...   

[KBCraig]

http://www.myfoxdfw.com/dpp/news/investigative/Elderly_Couples_House_Set_for

Sept. 1 Update: There was a victory for a Richardson couple at war with the state over their mental condition and their money.  Michael and Jean Kidd's home was not sold on the courthouse steps and now the judge is clarifying his orders.

[FreelanceFreedomFighter]

Great... now that the judge has essentially robbed them of their finances, he "clarifies" that he's granting them some of their Rights. Grrrrr... Everything that they took from them or cost them to lose financially should be returned, with interest! But not at the expense of the citizenry... it should come squarely out of the pockets of those who conspired to cause them harm... namely the judge, the "guardian", and anyone else who was part of building the fraudulent case to deprive them of their freedom and rights. IF that were to happen, people might just think twice about trying to pull such shenanigans on others in the future. (but I doubt it...)

[Ogre]

Which is one of the greatest flaws, in my opinion, of our system. All members of the system (judges, policemen, "social" workers, et al) are all immune from being prosecuted for their actions. When someone sues any government agency, the agency doesn't give a damn, because THEY don't have to pay for it.

[WithoutAPaddle]

I have some familiarity with guardianship law as it exists in New Hampshire, or at least as it did as recently as a decade ago, when I had to deal with it.

In the 1970s, New Hampshire was committed to getting out of the business of institutionalizing so-called "mentally incompetents" and was throwing them out of the Concord Hospital, Laconia State School, the Glencliff Home, and I think there was an institution specifically for veterans.  As far as finding guardian candidates for the ones with money was concerned, there were all kinds of fiduciaries lined up to, "look out for their interests", but there was little interest in overseeing the poor. 

As I recall it, some agency in the Department of Human Services was filing lots of guardianship petitions that claimed that certain individuals were incompetent and in need of guardians, but they didn't offer guardian nominees.  There was a legal action between branches of government (In re Gamble, 118 N. H. 771. et. sec., 1978) in which the New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled that it was the Executive Branch's duty to come up with guardians when it petitioned for the creation of guardianships, which it could only do if the Legislature gave it some kind of means to finance guardianships for people of modest means.  That ultimately led to the creation of the short-lived Public Guardian Office, a  state agency, which was then replaced with, "The Office of Public Guardian" (hereafter, the OPG) a private agency.

The Office of Public Guardian has, according to its web site, over 700 wards that it received by virtue of it designation by the Supreme Court (RSA:547-B) as part of its, "public guardianship and protection program", and it has another couple hundred wards that have the money to pay for guardianship services. 

In that latter capacity, it was guardian of my late aunt's person and estate, and to say that it managed her affairs poorly is an understatement.  My aunt had a surviving spouse's one half stake in her late husband's real estate, and the Guardian and court signed off on the sale of an eight room house on two beautiful acres on the Atlantic Ocean with about 200 feet of frontage for $240,000 to a buyer who had the same uncommon last name as a present day associate of the law firm that represented the Executor.

It was subsequently revealed six years later, in 1999, that the New Hampshire Department of Revenue was claiming that it was owed over $250,000 in unpaid taxes by the estate that made that sale, and over $250,000 in interest and penalties by its executor/administrator, and as far as I know, that matter still unresolved, and since that Executor died a couple of years ago and the court discharged his bond without any claims filed against it, the likelihood of the State of New Hampshire ever collecting that money becomes zilch, so the pressure on the DRA to rule that it is not, in fact, owed that money, may be overwhelming.

The Administrator of The Office of Public Guardian used to be someone named Michael Cassasanto.  He was the nationally renowned author of The Model Code for guardianship ethics.  At a Probate hearing in 1991, the fiduciary that represented the OPG was forced to make the embarrassing admission that the OPG had not adopted the Code of Ethics that its own director had authored.  I once mentioned that to the Director of the Tri-County Community Action Program (the other, designated, "public guardian") and he said it really doesn't matter because, "they're all lawyers over there, and the two codes of ethics are quite similar"

Well, for some reason, Mr. Cassasanto had been putting the letters JD next to his name, rather than Esq., so I called the New Hampshire Bar Association and they said he was not a member at that time.  More recently, I visited the OPG's web site and they listed the names of four current, "estate managers" that also had JD next to their names, rather than Esq., which I take to mean that they are not subject to the New Hampshire Bar Association's Rules of Professional Responsibility.  If there were a hundred hours in a day, I'd probably call the New Hampshire Bar Association to see if they are members, or if not, if they had been members but subsequently withdrew.  Anyway, back to guardianship history...

In 1979, the New Hampshire Guardianship statues (RSA:464A) had been massively redrawn, and in doing so, they incorporated the prevailing philosophy that personal rights could and must be conveyed to a guardian if it is proven in Probate Court that a person has functional limitations rendering him incapable of exercising those rights himself.  The Court now has a checklist it uses to determine, based on the presentation of evidence and a hearing, exactly what rights a person cannot safely exercise himself and that it therefore transfers to a guardian.  The evidentiary standards for proving the necessity of a guardianship are rigorous and explicit, but the rules regarding the management of property once a guardian has been duly appointed are vague and inadequate.

New Hampshire uses somewhat different language in delineating guardianship powers than do most other states.  New Hampshire has two classes of Guardian: a Guardian of the Estate and a Guardian of the Person.  The duties of a guardian of an estate are essentially the same as those of what most other states call a Conservator.  That causes a lot of confusion when lay people, and even lawyers, begin discussing Guardianships and Conservatorships because New Hampshire also has a Court-supervised, voluntary Conservatorship program, whereby a person who has NOT been adjudicated in Court to warrant the appointment of a Guardianship of his estate can petition the Court to appoint a person of his own choosing to manage his estate, with the Conservator submitting annual accounts that the Court will examine.  Either the Court or the ward can terminate the voluntary Conservatorship at any time.

New Hampshire also recognizes durable powers of attorney that take effect when a person becomes incapacitated. and it also recognized testamentary appointments of guardians of minor children.

The veil of secrecy involving guardianships is virtually impenetrable, and once they are established, it is nearly impossible for any "interested person" to use the Court system to challenge the actions of a guardian.  In New Hampshire, there are ten counties, each with just one Probate judge (again, last I checked) and since judges are appointed for life, or until mandatory retirement at age 70, anyone challenging the actions of a guardian will almost certainly be doing so in front of the judge who had determined that guardian to be fit to perform those duties.  Further, all Guardianship trials are bench trials, and so any finding of fact by a judge will not be overturned by the Supreme Court unless it is demonstrated to be so unreasonable as to constitute an abuse of discretion.  The Supreme Court will not simply substitute its own discretion for the trial court's.  I would be surprised if very many Probate Court findings regarding any New Hampshire guardian's exercise of his ward's property rights have ever been overturned, but the initial appointments of guardians and guardian-ad-litems have been overturned on due process grounds (see Armstrong v Armstrong, for example).

It may seem wasteful for a guardian to put up his wards at a cost of a couple thousand dollars a month when they have their own house available, but the guardian is responsible for their safety, and he often has to rely on the professional opinion of others when deciding how to prudently discharge that responsibility.  On the other hand, if a guardian has exceeded his authority in making property sales, the Court can order him to sue to recover that property, and even if the guardian refuses to do so or is unsuccessful, the Court may decline to remove the property from the Estate's inventory and the guardian may then be subject to a lawsuit against him that orders him to personally pay the estate its inventory value or actual market value, plus interest, and his bond may be released to satisfy such a court order