Tag Archives: elder abuse

Is Your Aging Client Being Seduced Away By Another “Advisor”? – From Aging Investor

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From Aging Investor, for the discussion click on the following link, CLICK HERE.

An interesting discussion, on a topic that needs more coverage relative to investment advisors and persuasion or undue influence in general. Mental capacity, mental understanding, intent, persuasion and undue influence are common issues and themes in elder and dependent adult abuse, trust, estate and real property litigation. In my experience, it is very difficult to get a business to reverse a transaction or a sale after the fact on an argument that the elder did not and could not understand the transaction. All situations are different of course, but most likely you will have to file a lawsuit before the entity will really take you seriously. It can help if there are prior medical/psychological doctor or other professional evaluations or comments about lack of mental capacity or the inability to engage in transactions or to continue as trustee, or a prior established conservatorship in appropriate cases.

Dave Tate, Esq. (San Francisco Bay Area and California), http://californiaestatetrust.com

Probate Court Judges Need More Judiciary Education From The California Judicial Council

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I can say this – absolutely. California judges need more, and more detailed, education about probate, wills, trusts, decedent’s intent, mental capacity, undue influence, fraud, conservatorships and elder and dependent adult abuse.

I’m not saying that all judges need more education – some are quite experienced in these areas – but over the past several years I have been running into situations where judges who primarily handle civil or criminal matters are also assigned probate related cases. And this can happen in any court for trial purposes because even in courts that have dedicated probate departments, the trial of a probate case that will take longer than a day will probably be assigned to the master calendar for trial and judicial assignment. I’m not faulting a judge for not having experience in these areas – I am faulting the system and the judiciary education system.

While, yes, it can be argued that it is then for the attorneys to educate that judge, if I’m a judge and one attorney is saying that the law and the required outcome are “X” and another attorney is saying that the law and the outcome are “Y,” as the judge I don’t know who to believe. And add to that the fact that probate, wills, trusts, intent, mental capacity, undue influence, fraud, conservatorships and elder and dependent adult cases and evidence are detailed and complicated, including the law in those areas, which is also regularly changing, and you have a recipe for erroneous decisions, and also opportunities for less than honest counsel to exceed the bounds of advocacy and improperly twist or spin the law and the evidence.

These are important cases. They are the probate court version of family law – important issues, very emotional, and people related and impacting.

Dave Tate, Esq. (San Francisco and California) http://californiaestatetrust.com and http://directorofficernews.com

 

 

More News On Elder Abuse, And What People Are Doing – But You Cannot Treat Or Remedy It Without Private Attorneys

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I am writing about elder and dependent adult abuse more, and more often. Elder and dependent adult abuse already was and has been an epidemic. The topic, however, is in the news more often, and governmental units are increasing their discussions about elder and dependent adult abuse, but those discussions cannot treat or remedy the abuse – there simply are not sufficient time and experienced people resources to treat and remedy the problem. I encourage the increased efforts, but people need to understand that those resources still are entirely insufficient. It takes a lot of time, and expertise to prosecute these cases in court. A couple of cases can almost entirely occupy an attorney’s time. Long ago the California Legislature enacted the Elder Abuse and Dependent Adult Civil Protection Act to encourage private attorneys to take on these cases. Well . . . private attorneys cannot take on these cases if they aren’t contacted to do so, and in most instances governmental entities work in silos, and also will not refer to private attorneys. The ridiculousness of this situation is extremely frustrating.

I am attaching links to two new elder abuse articles. One of the articles HERE is by Forbes, discussing banks and what they are doing about elder abuse. Although identifying elder abuse and freezing an account might be helpful in certain cases, bank investigations and referral to adult protective services don’t provide the resources to prosecute and remedy the abuse. The other article HERE discusses a Dallas County effort to prosecute and remedy the abuse – I cannot determine from the article whether private attorneys are utilized – hopefully they are and that would be a step forward – but it is clear that without private attorneys the necessary resources absolutely do not exist and people should not talk as if they are truly prosecuting and remedying the abuse..

Dave Tate, Esq. (San Mateo County, the Bay Area, and California)

 

 

Elder Abusers Use The Legal System Also

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You might be surprised that elder abusers aren’t necessarily worried or scared of the legal system.

In my experience, most abusers as a personality trait believe that they can get away with the abuse because they believe that other people are stupid, or that they simply won’t be caught, or that other people won’t make the effort or don’t have the time and resources to stop them.

You might also be surprised to know that elder abusers use or try to use the legal system to help them commit the abuse. Here are a few of the ways that I have seen.

-The abuser calls the police and complains that other people, the good people, are abusing, or mistreating, stealing from, or unduly influencing the elder. The abuser tries to turn the tables on the good people so that the abuser can then have the elder victim alone.

-Similarly, the abuser calls adult protective services and complains that the good people are mistreating or stealing from the elder.

-Another example, the abuser obtains an attorney who will draft a will, or trust, or power of attorney for the elder naming the abuser, and the attorney does not understand or sufficiently care about his or her ethical and legal obligations to the elder who is the attorney’s client.

-Or the abuser files a contest of the elder’s will or trust documents.

-Except in situations of immediate theft, typically the abuser works at this for a continuous period of time taking small steps forward, influencing the elder against the good people and eventually getting the assets, documents or evidence that help the abuser.

And in another example, the abuser promises the elder victim something that the elder wants, something that will make the elder happy, such as . . . “if you sign the power of attorney I will be able to take you home,” even when it’s clear that medically or for daily care the elder should stay in the nursing home.

The list goes on. These are cases that are difficult and time consuming, and can be expensive to prosecute – it takes good people to take action.

* * * * *

 

Using Risk Management – Citations Against Nursing Homes – Criteria for Determining the Amount of the Civil Penalty – California Health and Safety Code Sections 1424 and 1424.5

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California in part uses risk management principles to determine the amount of civil penalty to levy against a nursing home for a care violation. I would prefer, however, that in addition to the Section 1424 facts listed below, that the facts considered as criteria for determining the amount or increased amount of penalty also specifically include (1) the nursing home’s care policies, procedures and practices in place before the violation, and whether or not the nursing home was following those policies, procedures and practices, and (2) the nursing home’s timely payment of the penalty.

California Health and Safety Code Section 1424 in part provides that citations issued against nursing homes shall be classified according to the nature of the violation and shall indicate the classification on the face of the citation.

(a) In determining the amount of the civil penalty, all relevant facts shall be considered, including, but not limited to, the following:

(1) The probability and severity of the risk that the violation presents to the patient’s or resident’s mental and physical condition (i.e., traditional risk management, the likelihood of the occurrence and the possible severity of an injury that could result from the breach or continuing breach).

(2) The patient’s or resident’s medical condition.

(3) The patient’s or resident’s mental condition and his or her history of mental disability or disorder.

(4) The good faith efforts exercised by the facility to prevent the violation from occurring.

(5) The licensee’s history of compliance with regulations (this criteria should get little or no weight – tell this criteria to a severely injured or dead elder or dependent adult and his or her family – the fact that a facility has a history of compliance, or that noncompliance has not been noticed in the past really isn’t relevant to the injured or deceased elder or dependent adult and isn’t a criteria in traditional tort law, so why is it relevant at all for the purpose of citation penalties levied?).

(b) Relevant facts considered by the department in determining the amount of the civil penalty shall be documented by the department on an attachment to the citation and available in the public record.

This requirement shall not preclude the department or a facility from introducing facts not listed on the citation to support or challenge the amount of the civil penalty in any proceeding set forth in section 1428.

California Attorney General Office Information On Elder and Nursing Home Abuse

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The following information is provided by the California Attorney General Office, see, e.g., http://oag.ca.gov/bmfea/elder. The numbers all point to staggering statistics, and the following information is only for reported cases – as I have previously written, the information available indicates that cases of abuse very significantly outnumber the reported cases, perhaps by a 24 to 1 ratio.

Elder Abuse

      • The United States Census Bureau projected in 2000 that California’s elderly population will have doubled by 2025 to 6.4 million – a larger growth rate than any other state
      • The California Department of Finance projects that the number of California residents aged 65 and older–those who are most likely to need nursing homes or other long term care–will nearly double between 2010 and 2030.
      • About 110,000 Californians live in about 1,300 licensed nursing homes and about 150,000 live in about 7,500 licensed residential care facilities for the elderly. Another 150,000 or more Californians are estimated to live in unlicensed assisted living facilities that may or may not be able to care for them properly.
      • Many residents of both licensed and unlicensed facilities suffer from dementia and may be given dangerous antipsychotic drugs to sedate or restrain them improperly
      • In 2009 the California Senate Office of Oversight and Outcomes reported that 13% of all complaints to the California Office of the State Long Term Care Ombudsman involved abuse, gross neglect, or exploitation, over twice the national rate of 5%
    • The California State Department of Finance claims that the number of California residents age 85 and older – those who are most likely to need nursing homes — will nearly double by the year 2030, when the bulk of baby boomers will come of age.
    • In 2005, the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development reported that one-fifth of California’s nursing facilities did not meet state-mandated requirements for staffing levels.
    • In 2006, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services reported that twice as many of California’s 115,000 plus residents are placed in physical restraints as are nationally.
    • From 2001 to 2005, the California Department of Health Care Services, found that two-thirds of all reported deficiencies caused or could have caused significant harm to one of more residents in nursing homes. More than half of all complaints in nursing homes are related to poor quality of care. Eighteen percent of substantiated complaints were related to mistreatment or abuse.

Together, these staggering statistics and projections illustrate the urgent need to address and remedy the poor quality of care in many of California’s skilled nursing facilities.

Facilities Enforcement Team

The Facilities Enforcement Team investigates and prosecutes corporate entities, such as skilled nursing homes, hospitals, and residential care facilities, for adopting policies or promoting practices that lead to neglect and/or poor quality of care. Institutional neglect or substandard care includes:

  • Failure to provide medical care for physical and mental health needs
  • Failure to attend to hygiene concerns
  • Failure to provide adequate staffing
  • Failure to prevent malnutrition and dehydration
  • Falsification of patient chartsThe primary goal of the Operation Guardians program is to help protect and improve the quality of care for California’s elder and dependent adult residents residing in California’s approximately 1300 skilled nursing facilities. The Operation Guardians team identifies instances of abuse or neglect for further investigation and possible criminal or civil prosecution by the Bureau of Medi-Cal Fraud and Elder Abuse.
  • Operation Guardians
Fraud: 10/11 11/12 12/13 13/14 14/15
Criminal Filings 75 60 63 59 94
Convictions 58 46 35 32 56
Acquittals 3 1 0 0 2
Criminal Restitution $504,403 $279,228 $542,962 $180,017 $378,765
Civil Monetary Recoveries $6,145 $0 $0 $0 $0

 

San Mateo County’s New Elder and Dependent Adult Protection Team – The Good and the Insufficient

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You may have heard that the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors this month passed a resolution funding the Elder and Dependent Adult Protection Team “EDAPT” (also sometimes known as or similar to “FAST” or “Financial Abuse Specialist Team” in other counties such as Los Angeles) for two years from the County’s Measure A funding. The initiative is funded with approximately $3.13 million taxpayer dollars over two years with the funding to begin July 1, 2015 and will run through June 2017. Click here for the link. The comments in this blog are my own. As you may know, I have handled trust, estate, conservatorship and elder abuse litigation cases for over 20 years. I have become a bit more expressive or activist in my comments. These comments are not criticisms of anyone who is trying to combat elder and dependent adult abuse. But the fact is that resources are inadequate to identify and then to stop and remedy abuse. And although resources will always be inadequate, one resource, private attorneys, is entirely or almost entirely unutilized in this battle. Until entities that receive reports of abuse arrange for a procedure to refer cases to private attorneys there is absolutely no way that those agencies, including Adult Protective Services (APS), the District Attorney, the police, county counsel, etc. can come close to protecting the abused and remedying the damages that they suffer. In fact, the link above seems to indicate that the new EDAPT initiative is primarily a community educational program, which does not involve legal or court system remedies.

Let me provide you with a quick example that should help to explain the situation and the grossly inadequate resources. The Link above states “Research shows that for every one case of older adult abuse [note that this apparently does not include dependent adult abuse] that is reported – there are another 24 that go unreported.”  The link also states “Reports of older adult abuse have been on the rise as the county’s older adult population continues to grow – which is estimated to grow by over 70% by 2030.” I don’t know how many incidents of abuse Adult Protective Services receives in an average month in San Mateo County – maybe one of my readers will respond with the average monthly number. Let’s just say that in an average month APS receives 30 reports of elder or older adult abuse (again, we are not even counting the additional cases of dependent adult abuse reporting). I suspect that the reports exceed 30 per month; however, if research indicates that for every report of older abuse there are another 24 that go unreported, that would be 30 x 25, or 750 incidents of adult abuse in an average month. Do you know how much time and effort it takes to stop and then remedy just one case of elder abuse through the court system? Well . . . that number does vary from case to case, but I can tell you that based on my experience in my cases, the number of hours is huge and the time (i.e., months or even years) that it can take also can be staggering. I can also fully confirm that abusers actively fight legal actions that are brought against them. They know or believe that resources are limited and inadequate, and that they might stand a reasonable chance of beating the system.

The new initiative is for two years, at an average funding of roughly $1.5 million per year. The funding started July 1, 2015, so we already have 3 months done in the first year of the initiative. I have been looking for a detailed two-year plan for the initiative – perhaps one of my readers can tell me where I can find that plan. I have written and videoed about this topic before, and the inadequate resources. Again, I fully support the efforts of everyone who is fighting elder and dependent adult abuse, but let me say that resources are inadequate, and you really, really need to bring vetted private attorneys into the effort through referrals or by whatever means makes the report receiving agencies (i.e., APS, etc.) comfortable.

Best, Dave Tate, Esq. (and licensed inactive CPA), San Mateo County, San Francisco Bay Area, and throughout California

FBI raids California nursing home – from the Sacramento Bee

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The following is a link to a story by the Sacramento Bee about the FBI raid of a California nursing home over issues of alleged abuse. Click on the following link for the article, CLICK HERE.

The article provides relatively little detail; however, I did find the discussion about abuse reporting, or the lack thereof, interesting. I provided a talk about mandated reporters earlier this year for the Professional Fiduciary Association of California. Mandated elder abuse reporting is important, but you certainly do not see many discussions about it in the news. You can find the statutory reporting provisions at California Welfare & Institutions Code sections 15630-15632, pertaining to both physical and financial abuse, and for care provider and financial institution reporters.

Dave Tate, Esq., San Francisco and throughout California.

Ombudsman Services – San Mateo County – Annual Report 2014-2015 – 4,497 Care Facility Visits – 1,624 Investigations – And More Good Work

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Ombudsman Services SMC Visits Investigations FY 2014-2015

Below is a link to the San Mateo County, California, Ombudsman Services annual report for 2014-2015. The report shows amazingly substantial services for the year, including for example, 4,497 facility visits, and 1,624 investigations. As you might know, Ombudsman Services of San Mateo County, Inc. is committed to working with residents, families, facilities and stakeholders to create a community dedicated to protecting the rights of all residents living in long term care in San Mateo County. They challenge long-term care facilities to deliver the highest standards of individualized care for their residents, and advocate for the health, safety, and dignity of these residents and broader changes in the system.

The following is a link to the annual report – please take a look at this worthwhile organization that does good work on behalf of and protecting the rights of residents living in long term care facilities in San Mateo County, CLICK HERE

And please do pass this information and blog post to other people who would be interested in these very important services. Thank you.

Dave Tate, Esq., San Francisco and throughout California, civil, trust, estate, conservatorship and elder abuse litigation, and contentious administrations. My two blogs: http://californiaestatetrust.com and http://directorofficernews.com

Elder Abuse In Australia On The Rise – Government Makes A $100 Million Pledge

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Click on the following link for an article out of Australia, elder abuse is domestic violence and is on the rise – the government makes a $100 million pledge: Click Here For The Article

AU Elder Abuse Article