Peffer Case Summary

In the summer of 2007 Rita Denmark, a widow living with one of her Bradford daughters, was a fit 76-year-old who walked miles every day. She had cross-country skied in the winter. Her memory was not what it used to be, so she had given another local daughter, Holly Peffer, durable power of attorney responsibility, and Peffer managed her finances and bills in consultation with her mom.

An Office of Aging social worker recommended that a guardianship be arranged. The Orphan’s Court of the McKean County court system would be the court to grant that.

Accordingly Peffer set about getting guardianship in place by filing the appropriate petition in Orphan’s Court.

Even as the procedure was getting underway, two other adult children stepped in. The other Bradford daughter with whom she had been living took Mrs. Denmark to Florida to visit her son.

Early in that visit Mrs. Denmark was taken to see an attorney who had been lined up by the son she was visiting. She signed an affidavit which indicated that she had moved to Florida.

In more recent actions in McKean County Orphan’s Court, Peffer has maintained that Mrs. Denmark was tricked into her part in the proceedings, and had no intention of moving to Florida—only meaning to visit a son she had had little recent contact with. Peffer is convinced her mother was tricked into saying she was a Florida resident.

She considers the guardianship proceedings in Florida to have been based on a fraud on the court there, and the representations in McKean County Orphan’s Court to have been fraudulent as well, all intended to support the contention that the Florida court had jurisdiction in the matter.

Peffer says jurisdiction should have remained in McKean County, and the decision of the Florida court should be declared a nullity or should be overturned somehow.

As for Mrs. Denmark, she has been appointed a “professional guardian” who has worked with the two Florida attorneys. They placed Mrs. Denmark in an assisted living facility (or possibly a nursing home). Also, the attorneys and guardian got court approval of a no contact/no visitation order which keeps Peffer from having access to her mother.

“My mother is being criminally confined behind the locked and secured doors of a Florida elder care facility,” Peffer wrote to U.S. Attorney David J. Hickton, based in Pittsburgh, in September. “She is being held against her will and she wishes to return home to Pennsylvania. There is substantial, clear and convincing evidence that my mother is a lifelong domiciliary and resident of Pennsylvania.”

The Florida guardian, Jetta Getty, assisted by others, came to Bradford and took custody of Mrs. Denmark’s valuables, antiques, car and jewels. Previously they had obtained Peffer’s assistance in packing up some of the items, and transferring over $240,000 in Mrs. Denmark’s funds from Hamlin Bank to a Florida bank.

Peffer says she cooperated with Getty because Getty told her this would be the most efficient way to get things in order so that Mrs. Denmark could some home.

Was there fraud upon either or both courts? How could that be determined? Peffer, representing herself, maintained that there was fraud, and offered case law to support such a conclusion.

Peffer’s hopes for her mother’s return are pinned to the judge’s decision. But there are others interested in the outcome as well: activists who are seeking changes in how guardianship of adults is handled, across the United States.

Full Article and Source:
Martha Knight, ERA Correspondent: Guardianship of Adults Can be Tricky and Contentious, Local Family Fights