She is crafting and proposing a bill in California that would allow adult children to petition probate courts to obtain an order granting visitation rights to ailing parents. Now, she wants to take her fight straight to Capitol Hill.
“This is a silent epidemic,” Kasem says in a phone interview.
Kasem and her siblings were involved in a bitter court battle with their stepmother to gain control of their father’s medical decisions when the “American Top 40” host died last month at age 82. Kasem claims, along with some of her siblings, her father’s family and best friends were all “kept away” from him. Although things have “settled down” since her dad’s death, Kasem acknowledges there was “so much drama” in the radio veteran’s final months.
“It’s not just a celebrity cause,” Kasem says, “This is happening to people all over the country. … I’m receiving hundreds of letters. … The letters keep coming in with stories, horrific stories, of people that have been blocked from their loved ones.”
The current laws in states across the country are “kind of working against the person who’s ill, and working against the family, and working against the person’s wishes,” she argues.
“There’s nothing right now on the books that allows a judge to say, ‘Let’s send a court-appointed attorney out to the ailing individual and ask if they want to see their kids.’ ”
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Kasem's Daughter Goes After "Silent Epidemic"
Kerri Kasem is on the right track. Casey's family experienced a national shameful pattern of stripping the family away from the 'protected one' the ward. Leaving the family with no where to go many end up at NASGA for information, support and advice. This is not the way to find out what's laying in wait for all Americans when it hits your house most are blindsided with only one option to retain a lawyer or a parade of lawyers to find out while the 'protected one' is still living, that the family has no standing the court sees the family as 'uninterested party'. Really?
ReplyDeleteFamily unit is not a government right. Family goes back to Adam and Eve, a God given right that we need to cherish and fight for.
Casey Kasem, a public figure did get attention due to his fame; he didn't know it while he was alive but he has his name on the march to Washington DC.
Thank you Kasem family for representing all families who do not have the name recognition to attract attention.
She is right, but technically adult children do have that right through litigation.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous you might be correct HOWEVER to get to that point how many lawyers, how much $ in legal fees and lawyer billing to go through the appeals process?
ReplyDeleteBy that time, the protected one is deceased giving the family standing as heirs as an estate case. Without decent honest legal representation and the fear of going bankdrupt the defendants are in a win win situation and that's the way it is.