The newspaper’s investigation of the system that controls the lives of about 65,000 Ohioans found that even judges overseeing the system say it is broken, The Columbus Dispatch reported.
Ohio’s system has ripped apart families, rendered the mentally ill voiceless, and left some elderly Ohioans dying penniless in nursing homes, according to the newspaper.
Probate judges in Ohio’s 88 counties direct the system without detailed state guidelines and often amid overloaded court dockets. The Dispatch’s yearlong investigation showed some lawyers appointed as guardians have been allowed to ignore elderly and mentally ill people while placing them in the lowest-rated nursing home and some lawyers have billed wards for thousands of dollars in questionable legal fees for routine tasks such as paying utility bills.
Other failings found included a severely autistic man whose weight rose to 513 pounds because his guardian — his mother— allowed him to gorge on junk food and microwave dinners despite caseworkers’ warnings. One guardian’s failures also separated an elderly couple married for 45 years in their final year, and an eccentric woman forced into guardianship against her will was left broke and homeless.
The newspaper’s survey of Ohio’s probate courts found that nearly 90 percent do not require credit checks for prospective guardians, and as many as 61 percent don’t require criminal-background checks of guardians entrusted with the assets and care of vulnerable people.
Guardians are required in most counties to submit paper status reports about their wards only every two years and probate courts are not required to independently verify reports. A few counties require monthly visits, but more than three-quarters of the state’s probate courts don’t require guardians to ever meet with their wards.
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Report: Legal guardian system fails many Ohioans
It ain't just Ohio!
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't matter what the law is.
ReplyDeleteUnethical public guardianship programs, their sleazy lawyers, and their hand-picked guardian ad litem "for" the incapacitated person will just ignore the law.
You can rewrite the law any way you want. It won't make any difference.
In Virginia, we have some of the best written guardianship laws in the country.
We also have the worst lawyers, who do not feel any obligation whatsoever to even pretend to follow the law.
It is a shame that these miscreants have pushed the envelope so far that a class action lawsuit is probably the only solution.
And when the whole public guardianship system implodes because of these shameless shysters, the elderly and disabled who need responsible, helpful guardians, not lazy, unscrupulous, power-hungry jerks, will once again be the ones who suffer the consequences.
This is going on everywhere!!! People work all their life to have everything basically STOLEN from them and ABUSED by the very people that are suppose to watch out for them... Disgraceful!!!
ReplyDeleteI think for the most part when family is appointed as guardian, things go the way guardianship is designed. It's when the pros and the lawyer get their feet into it that it goes bad.
ReplyDelete