The Issue: Can Court-Appointed Conservators Be Sued?

Daniel Gross, 85, was suffering from a leg infection when he visited his daughter in Waterbury, Conn, in 2002 and had to be taken to a local emergency room. After Gross spent nine days in the hospital, a hospital social worker asked the Connecticut probate court to appoint a conservator for him.

The judge agreed, and from there, things spun out of control. Gross was sent to a nursing home and kept there for more than 10 months, unable to freely visit with his family. At one point he was attacked by his roommate, a convicted felon.

An attorney won his release, but before Gross died in 2007, he sued his lawyer, the conservator, and the nursing home. According to legal briefs, his attorney failed to challenge the conservatorship despite Gross’ request, and his conservator failed to oversee Gross’ financial affairs.

The federal District Court threw out the lawsuit in the spring of 2008, saying that Gross’ conservator and his lawyer could not be held liable for their actions because they were appointed by a probate court. The case then went to the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, which concluded in October 2009 that the case should be resolved in state court. In April, the Connecticut Supreme Court sided with Gross. The high court did carve out an exception – that immunity could be granted to a conservator if a probate court approves his or her actions. But it also ruled that the conservator can be sued for harm or loss to the person under conservatorship.

The case is expected to be referred to the trial court where it began. A jury will then decide whether to hold Gross’ court-appointed lawyer, the conservator and the nursing facility liable.

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AARP Bulletin: The Issue: Can Court-Appointed Conservators Be Sued?

Lawyer Replaced in Contentious CT Probate Case

Town Attorney Peter Boorman has been replaced as conservator in a bitter probate court case nearly two months after he and the grandson of the woman he represented got into a fight and were arrested.

The misdemeanor breach of peace charge against Boorman, 58, was nolled, meaning it will likely not be prosecuted, but can be reinstated if he is arrested again within the next 13 months.

Newington Judge of Probate Robert Randich this week appointed Katrina K. Camera of Schafler & Camera in Shelton as the new conservator for 96-year-old Margaret Geremia.

Geremia’s sons and grandson have fought over her care and modest assets for more than a year with each of her sons accusing the other of misappropriating funds.

Full Article and Source:
Newington Town Attorney Replaced in Probate Case

See Also:
After Fisticuffs, Attorney in Contentious Probate Case Resigns

Blumenthal Hearing On Health Issues For Elderly Includes His Brother

Caring for the elderly in hospitals, group homes and nursing homes is fraught with problems from over medicating patients, to people falling and injuring themselves when they’re not supervised.

A lack of coordinated medical treatment for patients, over-medicating elderly people to subdue behavior related to dementia and all manner of other problems recur in places that care for elderly people, according to advocates and clinicians.

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., held a Senate Special Committee on Aging hearing Monday at a legislative office Monday in Hartford. The point of the hearing was to bring attention to some of those problems and to examine possible remedies.

“Preventable adverse events contributed to the deaths of as many as 950 Medicare beneficiaries last year in Connecticut alone,” Jean Rexford, founder of Connecticut Center for Patient Safety, said in her testimony before Blumenthal.

And that was just in hospitals, she said. “This statistic does not include preventable deaths in our nursing homes or private homes, nor does it include the non-Medicare population,” Rexford said. “Another 22,000 patients acquired infections while they were treated in health care facilities and almost all of those were preventable.”

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Blumenthal Hearing On Health Issues For Elderly Includes His Brother

‘Bringing Dorothy Home’

Purpose: to raise awareness of the growing phenomenon of nursing homes bypassing families’ legally established authority in order to seize the assets of their “residents” ~ whether there by choice, or, as in my mother’s case, not. Families can even lose their rights to VISIT their loved ones, as these predators follow their usual procedure of: “Isolate, Medicate, Liquidate.”

I kept my mother out of a nursing home for more than seven years before she went to Wilton Meadows for stroke rehab and was kidnapped by them. We also paid considerably into a “state-wide asset protection plan” ~ a partnership between her LTC insurance carrier [Met Life] and the state, to protect the house. This was paid into for several years, earning “credits” against potential Medicaid claims on the property. Under the Medicaid “Caregiver’s Exception,” I am also entitled to keep the house. And, finally, under her Durable POA I also could have (and should have) transferred everything into my own name. This never would have happened to her if I had done so, to my terrible regret now. I was never in a rush to do that, however, because I never intended to allow my mother to go into a nursing home. It was always my intention to create whatever she needed at home. Had I ever anticipated this turn of events, I would have sold the Roton Point property to pay for the house, and put it into my name, for her protection. But I was preserving her familiar status quo for her sake and simplicity for tax purposes.

Source:
Blog: Bringing Dorothy Home

CT: Restructured Probate Court System Sends Dollars Back to State’s Coffers

Two years removed from the verge of fiscal collapse, Connecticut’s restructured Probate Court system has returned more than $10 million to state’s coffers over the past two fiscal years.

And though the restructured system’s administrative budget now includes an annual assist from the General Fund, probate courts will return nearly three-quarters of the state money they received this fiscal year.

“Court consolidation dramatically cut costs, and the savings will benefit the taxpayers of the state on an ongoing basis,” Judge Paul J. Knierim, the state’s probate court administrator, said Friday.

The courts, which are projected to spend $33.5 million this fiscal year, cover the bulk of their operating costs through service fees, though the system also received $7.5 million from the state budget.

Knierim’s office reported last week that $5.5 million of those dollars will be going back.

One of the oldest probate courts systems in the nation, with roots dating back over 300 years, the Connecticut courts underwent a dramatic restructuring in January 2011 to reverse growing financial woes.

The state’s 117 court districts were consolidated into 54, while judges’ salaries were reset based on caseloads and capped at 75 percent of the $146,780 annual salary for a Superior Court judge.

Knierim said that these changes have kept probate judges’ pay essentially flat since the restructuring. That, along with the overall reduction in judicial posts, has been the biggest, single, cost-control measure.

Full Artice and Source:
Restructured Probate Court System Sends Dollars Back to State’s Coffers

Panel Rules Against Lawyer in Smoron Probate Case

A panel that oversees the professional conduct of state lawyers found that local attorney John Nugent violated ethics laws in his handling of the estate of Josephine Smoron, according to a decision released this week.

The Statewide Grievance Committee ruled that Nugent knowingly ignored knowledge that Smoron had a signed will leaving her 80- to 90-acre farm to caretaker Samuel Manzo. It further found that Nugent sought to intentionally deceive and defraud Smoron of her final wishes, and lied during testimony last fall.

The committee ordered that Nugent be reprimanded for the violations, which means a copy of its findings will be published in the state’s law journal.

“We conclude that the respondent knew that Ms. Smoron had a will that left her estate to the complainant,” the report stated. “Rather than actively search for this will and confirm Ms. Smoron’s testamentary wishes, however, the respondent chose to ignore the information presented to him and develop a mechanism that would give him control over Ms. Smoron’s estate after her death and allow him to determine who would inherit her estate.”

Nugent’s attorney, James Sullivan, said the ruling was based on vague rules of administration of justice and he will appeal the decision.

“We disagree with the findings and we are going to request a hearing,” Sullivan said.

Nugent was Smoron’s conservator when she died in June 2009. Several months before she died, Nugent created two trusts and funded them with her cash assets and real estate while naming himself trustee. He also made a deal with local developer Carl Verderame to buy the property for $1.5 million for use as an access road to Verderame’s proposed sports complex off Interstate 84. Three local churches were to be named beneficiaries, not Manzo.

Shortly after Smoron’s death, Manzo learned there was only $6,000 in the estate and hired local attorney Barry Pontolillo. The case is now in the hands of three probate courts and Hartford Superior Court.

Full Article and Source:
Panel Rules Against Nugent in Southington Probate Case

See Also:
Jambed Gears of Justice in CT Probate Case Over Farm

After Fisticuffs, Attorney in Contentious CT Probate Resigns

The Newington Probate Court accepted the resignation of Town Attorney Peter Boorman as conservator in a bitter probate case.

Boorman’s resignation followed a fight between him and his client’s grandson.

Probate Judge Robert Randich made his decision after 90 minutes of testimony that included a blow-by-blow account of the May 22 fisticuffs between Boorman and Joseph Geremia.

Randich ruled that Boorman was not at fault for the melee, but agreed to accept his resignation.

“I think Mr. Boorman had been doing it and doing it well,” Randich said of his work on the difficult case. “I think the well has been poisoned from which the good will needs to come.”

Randich appointed Boorman conservator at the time Boorman was vice chairman of the Newington Democratic Town Committee and Randich a member. Boorman left the town committee earlier this year, he said.

On May 22, Wallingford police arrested Boorman, 58, of Newington, and Joseph Geremia, 39, of Rocky Hill after a fight at the home of Geremia’s parents, Douglas and Linda. Boorman went to the house after Randich issued an oral order to collect almost $9,000 in cash and deposit it in the trust account of 96-year-old Margaret Geremia, for whom Boorman serves as conservator.

The fight happened about an hour after a contentious hearing during which Boorman sought authority to request a criminal investigation of $15,000 in expenditures he says that Douglas and Linda Geremia have failed to explain.

Boorman and Geremia were each charged with second-degree breach of peace. State prosecutors decided last week not to prosecute the charges.

Full Article and Source:
Newington Town Attorney’s Resignation Accepted In Contentious Probate Case

See Also:
State Won’t Prosecute CT Attorney/Conservator Involved in Altercation

CT: Probate Dispute Drains $162 Million Estate

On a rainy and foggy March night in 1986, a small plane crashed outside of Chicago, killing F. Francis “Hi Ho” D’Addario, one of the most prolific and colorful industrialists of the 20the century in Connecticut.

Successful and wealthy, D’Addario was a 63-year-old Bridgeport businessman who had a will that distributed his substantial estate – valued at as much as $162 million — among his wife and five children.

It was a complicated matter. D’Addario Industries was diverse, from construction and paving to real estate, television and gambling to the Brakettes, a professional women’s softball team. That was nothing, however, compared to the mess that awaited in Connecticut’s probate courts.

More than 26 years later, D’Addario’s will remains open before probate court. And according to one interested party, the mystery is where all the millions have gone.

This long-running D’Addario saga of more than two decades of legal wrangling, intrigue and infighting is another reminder of a probate court system stuck in another era. While there is nothing to suggest that the D’Addario story is typical, the case raises questions about a court system that critics say lacks oversight – a theme I have sounded often in my years of columns about the probate court system’s failure to enter modern times.

“It is a situation ripe for abuse,” write lawyers for one of the estate’s creditors, the Cadle Company, in a federal complaint filed recently against D’Addario’s sons David and Lawrence and others connected with the estate. Connecticut probate court procedures lack “appropriate judicial supervision,” Cadle lawyers charge in the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Bridgeport.

I can’t begin to unravel the decades-long dispute between D’Addario’s oldest son David and the Cadle Corp, which has sought payment of about $3.1 million from the estate over the decades. The Cadle lawsuit seeks to settle some of that, charging that D’Addario’s millions evaporated in years of “plundering, pillaging and looting.”

Full Article and Source:
Probate Dispute Drains $162 Million Estate

State Won’t Prosecute CT Attorney/Conservator Involved in Altercation

The state’s attorney’s office on Tuesday declined to prosecute breach of peace charges against Newington Town Attorney Peter Boorman and the grandson of a woman for whom he serves as conservator in a long-running and bitter probate case.

By choosing to nolle the misdemeanor charges, the state reserves the right to raise them again if a defendant is arrested during the 13 months, otherwise they will be erased.

Wallingford police arrested Boorman, 58, of Newington and Joseph Geremia, 39 of Rocky Hill on May 22 after a physical altercation between the two that happened when Boorman was at the house where Geremia’s grandmother lives to collect almost $9,000 pursuant to a probate court order issued earlier that day.

Boorman ‘s lawyer John D. Ritson said his client would resign in the next few days as conservator for 96-year-old Margaret Geremia. Boorman will remain conservator until Newington Judge Of Probate Robert Randich accepts his resignation, Ritson said.

“He has no intention of staying in the case given what’s going on,” Ritson said. “It was a crazy situation. This was a very contentious thing that’s been going on a long time. He was trying to do what the judge wanted him to do. Joseph Geremia had no business being there.”

The Newington Probate Court had received no resignation letter from Boorman as of Tuesday afternoon. If a request is received, Randich would rule on it at the next hearing in the case scheduled for June 11, his office said.

Randich appointed Boorman conservator, putting him in control of Margaret Geremia’s finances, last September. Boorman is vice chairman of the Newington Democratic Town Committee, and Randich is a member.

The altercation occurred about an hour after a lengthy and contentious probate court hearing during which Boorman asked for authority to seek a criminal investigation. Boorman claimed that Joseph Geremia’s parents, Douglas and Linda Geremia, had failed to explain to him $15,000 in expenditures and gifts made while they managed his mother’s affairs.

Full Article and Source:
State Won’t Prosecute Newington Town Attorney

Jambed Gears of Justice in Ct Probate Case Over Farm

There are few more frightening glimpses of probate court gone wrong than the story told in a new memo from the chief disciplinary counsel for the state committee that investigates complaints about lawyers.

An elderly, dying woman’s valuable estate is hijacked and her will violated in what seems like a nightmare that just couldn’t happen. Except that it did, just a few years ago, to an old Polish woman in Southington. It could happen to you.

I’ve been telling you about Josephine Smoron’s probate debacle for years because Sam Manzo, the caretaker who was supposed to inherit the broken-down old farm off I-84, was so audaciously pick pocketed in full view of our probate courts. I’m still writing about this because an outrageous injustice still has yet to be remedied.

The Statewide Grievance Committee, which hears complaints about the more than 35,000 lawyers in Connecticut, is still considering what action to take against John Nugent, the lawyer appointed as Smoron’s conservator. Superior and probate courts, meanwhile, have yet to sort out the shell game that snatched the farm from Smoron.

Nugent, who could lose his license to practice law, is still fighting efforts to resolve the case. In his responding memo to the grievance committee, Nugent’s lawyer said his client “due to the fault of no one … did not have complete and accurate information” and was never told that Manzo stood to inherit the farm.

During one hearing, Nugent was “distracted” and “simply did not hear” when told that Manzo had an interest in the property, the lawyer, James Sullivan, writes in his brief.

“He is hard of hearing and has been for many years because of his military service,” said Sullivan, who adds that “there is no evidence of any financial benefit to Nugent … he simply was not paying attention.” Sullivan also writes that Manzo, who had been conservator to Smoron but was removed, “had left her financial affairs in a mess.”

Meanwhile, the Smoron farm remains mired in the lawsuits stemming from Nugent’s ill-fated conservatorship.

Manzo, broke and still the old farm’s caretaker, hasn’t inherited the property Josephine Smoron long sought to give him. This probate morality tale still stinks, which tells us plenty about a probate court system that politicians and judges often say has been reformed and brought into the 21st Century.

What’s amazing – and most worrisome – about this case is that despite two lawyers looking out for Smoron’s interests and a judge overseeing the matter, the old lady’s will was ignored in routine, shuffle-the-papers fashion. This poor old woman had a court-appointed lawyer, a court-appointed conservator, and a judge who were all supposed to be in her corner.

Full Article and Source:
Can Damning Memo Finally Unjamb Gears of Justice in Probate Case Over Farm?