Wednesday, May 31, 2017

Elder Guardianship Cases Winding Their Way up to Federal Court

Mary Bush lives 20 minutes away from her 86-year-old mother in West Chester, Pa., but she’s not allowed to visit. In fact, Ms. Bush hasn’t seen her mother, Genevieve Bush, in 16 months because she was restricted from setting foot inside the Park Lane nursing home where the elderly Ms. Bush resides.

“I showed up on Jan. 27 to visit my mom and was told to leave by the administrator,” Ms. Bush told PacerMonitor. “When I called the police to report the visitation ban, I was assaulted by the officer.” Ms. Bush blames her mother’s court-appointed guardian Carol Hershey, who reportedly sent a letter stating Ms. Bush could no longer visit.

In most states, it is not uncommon for the elderly to lose their individual rights around residence, visitation, medical care, assets and property once they become a ward of the state under a court-ordered guardianship.

The younger Ms. Bush filed Bush v. Goodall on March 28, 2017, in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania after state court dismissed Ms. Bush’s petitions on two occasions.

“There’s no legal remedy in our state courts,” said Ms. Bush in a phone interview. “I want to stop Park Lane’s violations of mother’s resident rights, her rights under the nursing home reform act and my constitutional rights of association and communication with my mom.”

Ms. Bush is among a rising number of adult children of elderly parents confined to nursing homes who are seeking relief in federal court from state guardianship-related proceedings.

Full Article and Source:
Elder Guardianship Cases Winding Their Way up to Federal Court

6 comments:

Herb said...

Federal Court? That's a big waste of money.

Nancy said...

I feel so sorry for Mrs. Bush. And I agree that the case will be dismissed in Federal court because they all are.

OnThePath said...

um....is there not a federal nursing home resident's Bill of Rights?? Could be that is what will be used as basis.. Anyway hope there is progress made.

Unknown said...

I begged Federal Court to intercede on my mother's behalf to no avail. If the State is violating constitutional rights and still not address their trespass, then federal court won't get involved talking about they don't want to get involved in deciding a state case, as if it's unfashionable or something. But if the state won't and then federal won't, it leaves a very vulnerable person unprotected. I called US Court of Appeals to appeal decision and they don't hear the case. What is really going on? When someone goes postal then they will be wrong but this is such a an emotionally charged situation....I seem to be making some headway on utilizing other Acts than the Probate Act. The power of attorney act state's the guardian, temporary or otherwise, cannot just step into the shoes of POA unless the Court Order specifically states such. Well,

Lara said...

I understand the frustration as I've been through it too. Filing a Federal case sounds like a good idea but as rrcontuse said, they don't work and I didn't know that until I'd tried it. Just more money down the drain. The title of this article disturbs me because it sounds like filing a federal case is the way to go. Very misleading. Geneve Bush should be able to see her daughter and it's abuse to not let her.

Anonymous said...

Welp, Carol Hershey, AKA shedevil, is going to be in big heaping trouble as she NEVER got my approval to become guardian of my parent and their estate.
This story is going to play out differently for Mary Bush now that there are two of us angry as can be.
Hershey's group LIQUIDATED everything after employees FAILED to give my parent proper care. tHEY DID NOT ADMInSTER A COUPLE OF VERY IMPORTANT DRUGS and my parent went off the deep end. This all seems clearly to be doen of purpose now that I look back at the timeline. They failed to collect and disperse said parent's SSA and SSDI checks for severa months (and not small ones, we're talking 3k per month) , so my parent was basically starving and going nuts begging to the neighbors for food. No one contacted me. As my parent was something of a recluse, I was not in close contact with them.
My parent had SIGNIFICANT wealth and somehow ended up in a horrible state run facility after running through all her income AFTER JUST A FEW YEARS.
Now I see that guardian service must have charged HUGE, INSANE fees to have completely liquidate all the money from my parent.
And now i see this story ? Oh hell no.
It troubles me that NO ONE in the state/commonwealth tried to help Ms. Bush.
It seems like all the whispers that PA is utterly corrupt are true after all. Very freaky.