Close Watch On Guardians Certification Has Helped Protect Elderly From Their Caregivers
Stella Margarite Turpin was a frail 96-year-old recovering from a stroke when her family decided she needed the help of a trustworthy guardian.
Instead, she was taken advantage of.
A court-appointed guardian, Sharon Price, overpaid her own son, daughter, son-in-law, herself and an employee with Turpin’s money, court records say. Price left taxes unpaid, causing Turpin to face a hefty late penalty.
All the while, Price, who made her living as a guardian, ignored a court order to file yearly financial reports on Turpin’s estate.
When the problems came to light in 1997, a Pierce County judge, Grant Anderson, removed Price as guardian and forced her to repay Turpin $33,000. Charges were never filed.
Anderson himself would later be thrown off the bench for violating ethics law while acting as an estate guardian. The Supreme Court found that he gave a friend a sweetheart deal on an estate asset in return for a Cadillac El Dorado.
Such are the hazards of a profession long regulated by little more than trust.
But that appears to be changing.
Last spring Washington became the second state in the nation to license professional guardians. A statewide certification board is finalizing plans to require criminal background checks, basic competency exams and training.
County superior courts statewide are now inviting volunteer auditors to dig through public case files. And judges, fed up with lax accountings and shoddy record-keeping, have begun monthly hearings to deal with unresponsive guardians.
“Doesn’t it seem like, `Duh, why haven’t we been doing this forever?”’ said Pierce County Superior Court Judge Marywave Van Deren, head of the new guardian certification board. “We don’t just let people get shoved aside as they get old. We must stand up for our weakest members.”
The new scrutiny is also bringing to light new problems.
Guardians with questionable histories are being hauled in to answer hard questions. Those who can’t answer satisfactorily are banned from the field. Price was the first.
A Spokane family-run business became the second called before the board when local court officials complained of late financial reports.
The company, Guardianship Services of Eastern Washington, retains its license, but a local investigation is pending.
The new oversight is applauded by guardians and their critics.
Liz Lindley, executive director of the state’s biggest guardianship agency, has pushed for certification since 1993.
“The more people watching the better,” said Lindley, with Lifetime Advocacy Plus, which specializes in guardianships for the developmentally disabled.
“It’s exactly what’s needed,” said Doug Shafer, a Tacoma attorney who has been the state’s most vocal critic of guardianship practices. “It’s going to raise the standard of practice among professional guardians statewide. Now, it is more of a recognized profession.”
A legal last resort
Guardianships carry extraordinary powers over their clients - complete financial control and pull-the-plug medical authority.
Those under a guardianship lose the right to marry, to sue, to vote, to spend money without permission.
Guardianships are a legal last resort for people who are mentally unable to care for themselves or their checkbooks. Roughly three-quarters of Spokane guardianship cases involve indigent people on federal assistance.
Courts turn first to relatives and to options that preserve as many civil rights as possible. Family guardianships make up a majority of cases.
But relatives are often absent or themselves precipitate the need for a guardian. Files in Spokane Superior Court detail thefts by relatives, some totaling more than $50,000. There’s been no recent prosecutions of such exploitation, according to court records and attorneys.
Absent family or other options, courts turn to professional guardians.
County superior courts are charged with oversight but often are too overworked to monitor for abuse or incompetence.
A shocking number of problems are being unearthed in Spokane, Pierce and King county courts, Van Deren said.
“To everyone’s horror, we’re finding a huge amount of noncompliance” in required annual accountings, she said.
Problems aren’t limited to paperwork.
Cheryl Mitchell, who started Spokane’s first private elder-law practice, calls guardianships “the legal equivalent of death without a tombstone.”
Her concern that rights of the elderly were getting trampled led her to an unpaid, monthlong review of more than a hundred Spokane files.
The research, which is ongoing, confirmed her fears. Courts don’t always protect people from losing their rights unnecessarily, she said.
The “alleged incompetent person” doesn’t usually attend the hearing where a guardianship is considered and has no attorney present, Mitchell found. In one case, three doctors recommended against guardianship, finding an elderly woman had sporadic dementia, yet a full guardian was granted nonetheless, she said.
“If you are going to take someone’s civil rights from them, it’s important that you follow the right steps,” Mitchell said. “I don’t see that happening a lot of the time.”
`I want to see more’
Reviews of Spokane County guardianship files show five-year gaps in accountings and medical condition reports that are required annually. Without those documents, monitoring financial exploitation or neglect is nearly impossible.
In some cases, guardians - both untrained relatives and professionals - failed to show up in court when judges and commissioners demanded answers.
This frustrates Spokane County Superior Court Commissioner Fred Aronow, a member of the state certification board.
The court’s “thin staffing” prevents substantial review of individual files, and the accountings often fail to present a complete picture for him.
“Every time someone comes before me with a shoe box full of checks, there’s that nagging feeling in my gut - I want to see more, and I know I don’t,” he said.
Despite the new monitoring efforts, questions remain about the investigatory power of the statewide board.
All of the discipline levied thus far - including Price’s banishment and the investigation of the Spokane firm - happened after complaints by judges and court officials.
But the agency accepting complaints from ordinary citizens lacks a full-time investigator. Bob Henderson, spokesman for the state Office of the Administrator of the Court, admits that “nothing has happened yet” in looking into citizen complaints.
In fact, all disciplinary actions by the certification board are on hold for now. The state Supreme Court, which appointed the board, has yet to give final approval to certification guidelines.
But already squabbles have broken out among board members over the investigatory process.
Van Deren, the board chairwoman, threatened to quit in April when the board initially adopted what she saw as a lax discipline policy.
The board members - half of whom are guardians themselves - decided that disciplinary actions would be protected from public disclosure and that all existing guardians, regardless of past troubles, would be licensed.
“Some board members said we need to certify everyone, to turn a blind eye to what we see,” Van Deren said. “If we are not going to screen out people who cannot demonstrate their only interest is the incapacitated person, I’m not going to sit on board.”
The board continues to “temporarily certify” some guardians with a history of problems, giving them a chance to make their case.
A growing profession
The professional guardianship business barely existed a decade ago, limited to boutique enterprises run by elder-law attorneys.
But the growth has been rapid. The first such local business, Guardianship Services of Eastern Washington, opened in 1990.
Since then, three other local companies have opened for business. And at least three more are seeking certification.
Statewide, 30 companies and 170 individuals have applied for professional certification, required of people who accept fees and have at least three cases. Statewide, about 5,500 guardianship cases are opened yearly.
In Spokane - the only Eastern Washington county with professional guardians - there are an estimated 2,500 active cases and about 200 are added yearly.
The boom is likely to continue. The graying of the baby boom generation will nearly double the 65-and-over population by 2020, to 1.2 million, according to the state Office of Financial management. And medical technology enables more people to survive automobile accidents that leave mental impairments.
Tom Robinson, a Spokane elder-law attorney, saw the growth potential and became a full-time guardian in 1997.
He calls it a “cutting edge profession” and relies on a network of three employees, linked computers and phones to keep track of about 40 clients, 24 hours a day. “I live with my cell phone,” he said.
The new standards will help companies get insurance, which Robinson had difficulty landing. And state licenses offer assurance that a guardian is reputable, he said.
“There’s a tremendous potential for abuse by people who perhaps care a little less about the care-giving aspects and more about the money-making aspects,” he said.
See related story under headline: Guardian firm’s practices raise concerns