Charges Dropped Against MA Man Accused of Helping Father Commit Suicide

Charges against a Massachusetts man who was accused of helping his father, a prominent attorney and West Hartford resident, commit suicide were dropped [12/08/11]. Prosecutor Thomas Garcia told Judge Joan Alexander that he didn’t want to continue to pursue the charges against Bruce Brodigan, 57, of Somerville, Mass. The judge approved the request.

“I feel my client is happy that it’s over,” said Hubert Santos, Brodigan’s attorney.

In September 2010, Brodigan, allegedly helped his father, George, take his own life through an overdose of drugs and alcohol. George Brodigan, who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, died at home with a half-filled bottle of Mount Gay rum and a copy of Derek Humphry’s “Final Exit,” a guide to ending one’s life, at his bedside.

According to police, Bruce Brodigan said his father wanted to take his own life before he became incapacitated. He told police that his father’s condition had declined and that there was talk about whether he could remain at his home without additional care.

“He loves his father and just wanted to relieve him of his pain,” Santos said Thursday [11/8].

It is illegal in Connecticut to assist in another’s suicide, and Brodigan was charged in January with second-degree manslaughter, tampering with or fabricating evidence and providing a false statement.

Garcia said he decided to drop the charges after Judge David Gold, who was recently transferred to another Connecticut courtroom, told him he would not grant Brodigan a special form of probation, which would have allowed allow him to clear his record upon successful completion.

Full Article and Source:
Charges Dropped Thursday Against Man Accused Of Helping Father Commit Suicide

Lawyer Who Got Bulk of $2M Estate Quits Bar

A lawyer facing disciplinary action over his handling of a $2 million estate resigned from the bar and waived his right to reapply to practice law in the state.

James Englis, 77, acknowledged in front of Judge Arthur Hiller in state Superior Court in Milford that his law practice is closed for good. But under the agreement reached between Englis and the Statewide Bar Grievance Committee, the lawyer admits no wrongdoing of any kind.

The action ends the disciplinary action pending against Englis, said Beth Baldwin, the assistant disciplinary officer of the state bar. There were four complaints against the Milford attorney, and a panel had earlier found that there was probable cause for a formal hearing.

The family of an 88-year-old deceased man, the bulk of whose $2 million estate went to Englis — the lawyer who drafted his will — accepted a settlement last month that increased their share of the estate from 30 percent to 50 percent. They had earlier rejected a 60-40 split in Englis’ favor.

Full Article and Source:
Lawyer Who Got Bulk of $2M Estate Quits Bar

Supreme Court Hears Case Of Man Committed Against His Will

Man’s Daughter Can’t Sue Probate Court, But Why Can’t She Sue His Lawyer, Conservator?

I wanted to shout out, sitting in the dignified, ornate chambers of the state Supreme Court Monday morning, as a string of lawyers debated what should be a basic right.

If somebody you have hired absolutely ruins your life — shouldn’t you be able to sue them?

And yet, the Supreme Court is being asked to grant immunity to lawyers and conservators appointed by the probate court, no matter what devastation they create.

The court Monday began considering this fundamental question because of the abuse that Daniel Gross, an elderly New York man, suffered during 2005 and 2006 at the hands of a Waterbury probate court after he became sick while visiting his daughter.

The long-running Gross case has become a battleground for probate court, Connecticut’s separate judicial system that handles wills, estates, adoptions, name changes — but also very delicate and controversial questions such as whether an elderly or sick person can live independently.

After he was hospitalized and his children fought over his care, Gross was conserved by probate court in Waterbury, which meant all his rights were taken away. A lawyer, Jonathan Newman, was appointed to advocate for him. A conservator, Kathleen Donovan, was appointed to represent him.

Newman failed to object to the conservatorship, despite knowing Gross’ opposition. Donovan made sure Gross was placed in a locked ward of a local nursing home for 10 months.

Donovan and Newman (supported by the state’s probate judges, by the way) are looking for special treatment for the lawyers and conservators who make a living off the courts. We all know that if a physician seriously injures a patient, that person can sue. Yet in this case, the Supreme Court is being asked to protect the people who are appointed to work for the elderly and frail — even if they royally screw up.

A lawyer for Gross, Sally Zanger, reminded the justices that “people lose their freedom” when a conservator is appointed. “We really need to be concerned about frail and elderly people who are conserved,” Zanger said.

Richard Roberts, a lawyer for Donovan, argued that a conservator “is but an agent of the court,” merely carrying out the court’s wishes. “You shouldn’t have to look over your shoulder when you are making these judgment calls.”

These judgment calls left Gross, a man who lived independently in his own home on Long Island, locked in a Waterbury nursing home for nearly a year.

These judgment calls meant that even when Gross fled home to New York at one point, his conservator pulled him out of a Long Island hospital and brought him back to Connecticut.

These judgment calls can destroy someone’s life.

Full Article and Source:
Supreme Court Hears Case Of Man Committed Against His Will

Probate Case To Test Lawyer Immunity Limits

The disturbing case of New York resident Daniel Gross, whose visit to Connecticut ended in a 10-month stay in a locked Waterbury nursing home ward, is coming before the state Supreme Court to determine just how much immunity from suit his lawyers deserve.

Connecticut case law is so unclear on this immunity question that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit sent the matter to the state Supreme Court with a request to fill in the blanks of what legal protections conservators and lawyers for wards of the probate courts can legally expect.

In 2006, on a writ of habeas corpus, Gross was freed from Grove Manor nursing home by Superior Court Judge Joseph Gormley, who called the case a gross miscarriage of justice. The elderly man had been visiting one of his daughters in Waterbury when a leg infection landed him in the nursing home.

When his children couldn’t agree on his care, a hospital employee asked the probate court to review Gross. It sent Waterbury lawyer Jonathan Newman, who visited Gross and found him alert and even “profound” in his communication. He had a home on Long Island with a reverse mortgage, and expressed a desire to return and live independently.

In his report to Waterbury probate Judge Thomas Brunnock, Newman wrote that he “cannot find any legal basis on which to object to the appointment of a conservator for Daniel Gross’ person and estate.”

By statute, Gross was entitled to seven days notice of the hearing to appoint a conservator, and if he couldn’t get to the hearing, the judge was supposed to go to him. Instead, according to the court record, Brunnock on Aug. 25 wrote an order that Gross was to be notified on Aug. 24 of an upcoming Sept. 1 hearing – a legal act the Second Circuit described as “facially impossible.”

Naugatuck solo Kathleen Donovan became Gross’s conservator for nearly a year, ultimately billing $27,000 for her services while he was in the locked ward. In Gross’s original complaint, he alleged his roommate was a confessed robber who threatened and assaulted him. Once, when Gross returned on a day pass to Long Island, he was hospitalized there, and Donovan arrived with an ambulance to return him to Connecticut, against the New York doctors’ advice.

On July 12, 2006, when the habeas writ came to Waterbury Superior Court Judge Joseph Gormley, he was critical of probate Judge Brunnock’s failure to discern that he might lack jurisdiction over the New York resident, and said Newman mis-served and underserved his client. The judge commented, “This case has disturbed me from day one. I kept looking for evidence to support what was done, but I find none.”

Gross, deeply relieved, was freed from the locked ward and the attentions of Newman and Donovan, returned home and died about a year later. His executrix, one of his daughters, filed a federal civil rights case against Gov. M. Jodi Rell, the state elder care ombudsman, the nursing home, the probate judge and the court-appointed lawyers.

Cases against the state employees were dismissed by U.S. District Judge Vanessa Bryant on sovereign immunity grounds, and the probate judge invoked judicial immunity. The cases against Newman and Donovan were dismissed on the grounds of quasi-judicial immunity.

On appeal to the Second Circuit, Bryant’s dismissals were affirmed for all parties, except for the outstanding question of quasi-judicial immunity for the conservator, the lawyer for the ward, and the nursing home. In expanded oral arguments Oct 24, plaintiff’s counsel, Sally R. Zanger of the Connecticut Legal Rights Project in Middletown is scheduled for 35 minutes. Donovan’s lawyer, Richard “Rick” Roberts of Cheshire’s Nuzzo & Roberts, is to have 16 minutes. Newman’s lawyer, Louis Blumenfeld, of Hartford’s Cooney, Scully & Dowling, gets 12 minutes, and Wiggin & Dana advocate Jeffrey Babbin, for Grove Manor nursing home, has seven minutes of argument.

According to the defense, a careful examination of the facts makes Newman’s and Donovan’s work more understandable and the type of actions that should be protected by quasi-judicial immunity.

The statute for creating conservatorships speaks of “residents or domiciliaries” of the probate court’s jurisdiction. Newman’s lawyers note that Gross had been domiciled at his daughter’s, and in Connecticut hospitals, for two months before he was made a ward of the state.

In their brief for Newman, Blumenfeld and Lorinda S. Coon agree Connecticut’s case law is all over the map on quasi-judicial immunity. The cases “essentially define a spectrum where, at one end, a government or court-appointed attorney acts impartially in furtherance of an objective goal [as an arm of the court] and, at the other end, an attorney acts entirely as an advocate for a client” like any private lawyer not entitled to court immunity.

Newman’s brief said lawyers in his role should have leeway. “[W]hen time is of the essence to make a medical decision or take steps to protect assets, is the attorney really duty-bound to delay a hearing due to some technical, easily correctable procedural flaw? Imagine the harm that could be done while the attorney blindly obeys the instructions of his client, forbidden to recognize that the client’s instructions are the product of dementia, paranoia or depression.” Both logic and the Rules of Professional conduct obliged Newman to impose a higher degree of objectivity about his client’s best interest, as in the case of a minor child, his lawyers argue.

Immunity Test

The Supreme Court was asked to nail down the nature of Connecticut’s quasi-judicial immunity for conservators, and lawyers for probate wards, in light of existing state and federal formulas. The federal test was set out in the 1985 U.S. Supreme Court case of Clevinger v. Saxner. It’s purpose is to determine how much the action in question needs the protection of court-like immunity from lawsuits.

Lawyers for Newman and Donovan contend that absolute or at least quasi-judicial immunity is necessary to aid the probate courts in supervision and care of wards and conservatees, and the acrimonious nature of the work requires a barrier against lawsuits.

In a long and clearly written 2009 opinion, a three-judge Second Circuit panel explained how powerful the protection of judicial immunity is. Under established U.S. Supreme Court precedents, judges are protected from lawsuits even when their conduct arises from legal mistakes, malice or overstepping the bounds of their jurisdiction.

It is only when a judge operates with a complete absence of any jurisdiction that the immunity does not apply. Thus, if a criminal judge convicts someone of a crime that does not exist, there is immunity. If a probate judge, with no criminal jurisdiction does so, there would be no immunity.

Lawyers unconnected to the case are following the progress of Gross with interest. For example, Eliot Gersten, of the Hartford offices of Pullman & Comley, represents Sam Manzo, a farmhand who was disinherited through the shenanigans of a now-retired probate judge and court-appointed lawyers for the aging Southington farm owner, Josephine Smorron. The defendants in that litigation are raising claims of quasi-judicial immunity, even though a probate court authorized Manzo to sue.

Gersten said the Gross case will be significant, however it is decided. “I think the case may make conservators remember they are a trustee, and I think they can be reminded they can’t neglect the ward, and that there are serious consequences for the ward if the conservator acts inappropriately. So the conservator should be held accountable for it.”

The defendants in Gross are saying, “if you allow us to be sued, no one’s going to want to take on the conservatorship role,” Gersten continued. “The problem with that argument, of course, is that it overlooks the fact that only irresponsible people are going to refuse to take on the conservator role. This case is not about those people who do their job responsibly and follow the rules, and do what a conservator’s supposed to do.”•

Source:
Probate Case To Test Lawyer Immunity Limits

See Also:
CT State Supreme Court To Consider The Quasi-Judicial Immunity Of Conservators And Probate Lawyers

Immunity and Impunity

Attorney Eliot B. Gersten, who represents a disinherited farm caretaker, said some conservators “act as if they have impunity as well as immunity.”

Source:
Probate Case To Test Lawyer Immunity Limits

CT State Supreme Court To Consider The Quasi-Judicial Immunity Of Conservators And Probate Lawyers

Daniel Gross, an old man infamously abused at the hands of probate court before he died in 2007, might yet force far-reaching reform in a system that once robbed him of his freedom.

Next week, the state Supreme Court will take up a key question from Gross’ federal civil rights lawsuit and consider whether the people appointed to look after him — the lawyers and conservators who are supposed to represent the best interests of the elderly and infirm in probate court — are immune from lawsuits.

Whether lawyers and conservators deserve what is known as “quasi-judicial immunity” is a volatile question. Reformers say this case represents the ultimate recourse for folks abused by the probate courts. Probate judges — and attorneys for Gross’ lawyer and conservator — say that denying immunity would bring the courts to “a screeching halt” because it would be impossible to find individuals willing to serve as conservators or lawyers in difficult cases for fear they could be sued.

It’s hard to imagine a court system where those who abuse, neglect and exploit aren’t held accountable. Granting lawyers and conservators immunity would do just that.

For years, I’ve watched rogue conservators and ill-informed probate judges abuse the rights of citizens. These might be isolated instances, but the cases keep coming in a court system that lacks proper oversight and that ought to be part of Superior Court.

The way to force reform in probate is to make sure there’s accountability, not immunity. Our probate courts remain a separate world in which judges are elected and too often a good-old-boy network permeates appointment and supervision of conservators and lawyers.

No case illustrates this better than what happened when the elderly Gross ended up in Judge Thomas Brunnock’s Waterbury probate court during the summer of 2005.

Gross had come from his Long Island home to visit his daughter in Waterbury. He became sick and was hospitalized as his children fought over his care — and over who should control his finances. After the hospital asked probate court to step in, Judge Brunnock ordered Gross involuntarily conserved, taking away all of his rights.

Brunnock didn’t bother to give the old man a chance to speak up: Gross wasn’t even at the hearing at which he was ordered conserved. His court-appointed lawyer, Jonathan Newman, failed to object to the conservatorship, despite knowing Gross’ opposition. His conservator, Kathleen Donovan, placed him in a locked, restricted ward at Grove Manor Nursing Home in Waterbury.

Few moments in journalism stand out more for me than the day in July 2006 when I watched Superior Court Judge Joseph Gormley acknowledge “a terrible miscarriage of justice” and order 86-year-old Daniel Gross freed from his imprisonment in a Waterbury nursing home. Were it not for the work of Legal Aid attorneys and John Peters, a volunteer lawyer from West Hartford, Gross might never have emerged from probate hell.

As he shuffled out of the courthouse, Gross told me that he was “overwhelmed with happiness.” I saw what freedom, dignity and civil rights mean for an old man abused by a probate court that was supposed to protect him.

Full Article and Source:
An Elderly Man’s Lawsuit Could Bring Probate Reform

Note: Daniel Gross’ daughter, Dee King, is a NASGA member.

‘Ella’s Law’

I got a phone call from State Sen. Edith Prague D-Columbia who represents the 19th Senatorial District where I live, and therefore, where my mother lives, telling me the bill we refer to as Ella’s Law, after my mother M. Ella Winter, has become law. Sen. Prague, or Edith as I like to call her, befriended my mother a few years ago when Mom was locked in a series of legal battles with my out-of-state siblings and their spawn who wanted to institutionalize her.

Mom won the major legal battles, but then was subjected to a series of complaints that were initiated in New York, Florida, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, all falsely alleging that she was being abused in Connecticut because she wouldn’t call the people in those states who had tried to institutionalize her.

The complaints went on for more than a year and included other forms of harassment, but what they really accomplished was exposing a major weakness in Connecticut’s elder abuse system. So, late last year, after the elections, after Sen. Prague, Edith as I like to call her, was re-elected, she convened a task force to do some rewriting and new writing to fix the law.

The work was done, hearings were held, testimony was gathered, pros and cons were considered, and ultimately we have what now is referred to as Public Act 11-224. The act will go into effect on Oct. 1, 2011 and from then on we expect regular reports of overcrowded jails as scores of criminals and other low lifes attempt to rob the poor and stuff the pockets of the rich.

From now until then, should any cases of elder abuse through false complaints surface, we’ll just have to rely on good old-fashioned vigilantes.

Full Article and Source:
Granny Snatching: Ella’s Law Now Law Protecting CT Seniors

Family of Man Whose $2 Million Estate Went Mostly to His Lawyer Rejects His Settlement Offer

The family of an 88-year-old deceased man, the bulk of whose $2 million estate went to the lawyer who drafted his will, has rejected a settlement that would have allowed the lawyer to keep most of that money.

Gail Heitz-Cahill of Westport said Thursday that her family offered to let Milford lawyer James Englis keep 20 percent of the estate, but they rejected a counter offer that would have left them with the short end of a 60-40 split. “We are going to go ahead with taking depositions and pursuing our complaint against Jim Englis to the bar grievance panel,” she said.

John Lecouras inherited $2 million upon the untimely death of a nephew in 2007. A will he signed a year later left Englis and several of the lawyer’s relatives a total of $1.1 million, while Lecouras’ own family, including the woman with whom he spent 37 years, shared $800,000. After Lecouras died last year Probate Judge Paul Ganim removed Englis as executor and appointed Bridgeport attorney Fred Paoletti as temporary administrator of Lecouras’ estate.

The family has also filed a complaint against Englis with the grievance panel of the Ansonia-Milford Judicial District, charging that Englis exerted undue influence on an elderly, ill Lecouras to change his will.

Full Article and Source:
Family of Man Whose $2 Million Estate Went Mostly to His Lawyer Rejects His Settlement Offer

Elder Rights and the Older Americans Act

Statement by Kathy Greenlee

Assistant Secretary, Administration on Aging

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)

on Elder Rights and the Older Americans Act

before Special Committee on Aging United States Senate

Tuesday August 23, 2011

Thank you, Senator Blumenthal, for the opportunity to testify at this important hearing on elder justice. I appreciate the opportunity to share with you the Administration on Aging’s (AoA) commitment to this important issue and the role of the Older Americans Act (OAA) in helping to protect and serve victims of abuse, neglect, and exploitation. As a Federal advocate for older Americans and their concerns, AoA is dedicated to protecting the rights of older people and preventing their abuse, neglect, and exploitation.

Elder abuse is a substantial global public health and human rights problem. The World Health Organization has declared that elder abuse is a violation of one the most basic and fundamental human rights: to be safe and free of violence. In a recent nationally representative study, one in ten older Americans reported being abused or neglected in the past year, and that many of them experienced it in multiple forms.

For nearly forty years, AoA has provided continual Federal leadership in strengthening the elder justice programming designed to prevent and address elder abuse and these consequences through the OAA.

•The Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program was established in 1972 to represent the rights and advocate on behalf of older residents living in nursing homes, assisted living, and other residential settings.

•In 1987, a new objective to protect elderly from abuse, neglect, and exploitation was added to Title I of the Act. A separate authorization of funds for elderly abuse prevention services was also created under Title III Part G. This had previously been allowed, but appropriation authority not reserved.

•The National Center on Elder Abuse (NCEA) was created in 1988 as an information clearinghouse on abuse, neglect, and exploitation, including best practices in prevention and treatment, serving as a repository of research, and conducting demonstration projects to promote effective and coordinated responses to elder abuse, neglect, and exploitation.

•In 1992, the Title VII Elder Abuse, Neglect, and Exploitation Program was established to provide funding to support State and community-based elder justice networks that protect vulnerable seniors and provide them with critical information, and the NCEA received a permanent home in Title II.

•The 2006 Older Americans Act amendments added provisions in Title II for the assistant secretary on aging to designate a person for elder abuse prevention and services with the responsibility for development of plans for a coordinated, national elder justice system. In addition, Title VII’s “Elder Abuse, Neglect, and Exploitation Program” was renamed “Vulnerable Elder Rights Protection Services”, and broadened the authority for States to carry out a range of elder justice activities, such as financial literacy and elder shelters, and to initiate multidisciplinary elder justice activities.

•Most recently, the Elder Justice Act was passed and signed into law in 2010. The Elder Justice Act provides authority for additional attention in this area, including highlighting critical issues through citizen participatory advisory councils; enhancing APS programs and data; and improving the quality of care in nursing facilities through enhancements to the Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program, establishing a system to report crimes in nursing homes, and assisting States to implement criminal background check programs for employees with direct access to patients.

Full Testimony and Source:

Elder Rights and the Older Americans Act

See Also:

Senator Blumenthal’s First Field Hearing as Senator

Senator Blumenthal’s First Field Hearing as Senator

Sen. Richard Blumenthal’s first U.S. Senate hearing in Hartford dramatically tackled the multi-bilion-dollar problem of financial elder abuse, drawing audible gasps Tuesday as a 90-year-old decorated World War II veteran described being turned out of his own home by a son.

“I come to you to testify as a proud survivor,” said the witness, Robert Matava of Unionville.

Matava said all the hardships in his life didn’t prepare him for a betrayal of trust. He served in World War II, received a Purple Heart after suffering a paralyzing gunshot wound to his back, lost his younger brother in the Battle of Iwo Jima, his wife to cancer and battled the disease himself.

He returned from war in the South Pacific and opened his own automotive repair business in 1948. He built a home with his wife, where they raised four children. As the years went by and his wife passed away, Matava said he wanted to move to Florida. He entrusted his son with his business and his estate.

“In all my 90 years I couldn’t predict the abuse I’d suffer at the hands of my own son,” said Matava, who was accompanied at the hearing by his other three children.

In 2010, he said he returned to Unionville, a village in Farmington, to spend his remaining years in the home he built with his wife.

“My son refused to let me in,” he said. “He said I better get a lawyer or pay him if I wanted to stay in the home that I built with my own two hands and raised him in.”

“I felt washed up,” he added. “I had trusted my children as any father would.”

Blumenthal, a member of the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging, called the financial elder abuse Matava suffered and other forms of elder abuse “the crime of the 21st century.”

“The lack of awareness is an enemy here,” Blumenthal said. “These cases are often ignored and disregarded.”

He said he plans to push for the creation of an Office of Elder Justice within the U.S. Department of Justice and enhanced penalties for cases of elder abuse.

Sandra Timmermann, vice president and director for the MetLife Mature Market Institute, presented data from a study the company conducted with Virginia Tech, the University of Kentucky and the National Committee for the Prevention of Elder Abuse, analyzing news articles detailing elder abuse from April to June 2010.

The financial losses attributed to abuse are staggering.

Of 389 unduplicated articles, 81 percent reported instances of financial elder abuse. In that 3-month period, the study calculated approximately $530,476,743 in losses due to elder financial abuse. Based on an estimate including unreported losses, MetLife calculated the annual financial loss to abused seniors in 2010 at $2.9 billion, a 12 percent increase from 2008.

“Financial advisors need to think about the ethical issues involved here and we strongly advise them to report any incidents,” Timmermann said.

“The Older Americans Act is a critical component in helping at risk seniors remain independent and healthy,” Greenlee said.

Full Article and Source:

Blumenthal’s First Field Hearing as Senator Tackles Elder Abuse