Are U.S. Probate Courts Abusing the Elderly?

When Texas Probate Judge Gladys Burwell ordered Juliette Fairley to pay $20,000 in cash for litigation costs associated with her 85 year old father’s guardianship proceedings, she allegedly violated the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure as well as Fairley’s right to due process under the U.S. Constitution. 

The daughter of Mr. Fairley, a 22 year veteran of the U.S. Air Force, didn’t have the financial means to pay the dollars that Bexar County Probate Court requested and was subsequently disqualified from being her father’s primary caregiver.

 “Guardianship is such an enormous business operation,” says Dr. Sam Sugar, a physician and founder of Americans Against Abusive Probate Guardianship (AAAPG), a nationwide advocacy group in Florida. “It’s worth trillions of dollars nationally and is enabled by the judicial system in all 50 states because there is no federal oversight or control.” 

According to court records, two of Mr. Fairley’s Texas physicians wrote letters that were submitted to the Court, stating that he did not need medical care.

Within a month, however, while under his daughter’s care in New York, cardiologist Dr. Nicholas DuBois updated Mr. Fairley’s blood pressure medication from Lisinopril to Losartan to alleviate frequent urination, pulmonologist Dr. Diego Diaz prescribed him Fluticasone for an infection that was causing congestion, Dr. Borcich prescribed the military veteran liquid Carafate to help him eat and Dr. Natasha Nayak ordered eye testing for Mr. Fairley’s glaucoma, according to petitions filed with the Court. “My father has a history of various medical conditions which require regular monitoring and treatment,” Miss Fairley stated in an affidavit dated July 8, 2016 filed with the appellate court.

Instead of holding the Texas caregivers accountable for denying the legally blind man medical treatment, Judge Burwell allegedly isolated the father from his advocate daughter by issuing an order that limits face to face visitation to a mere four hours per month and that creates a cost barrier by requiring payment of $50 an hour to visit Mr. Fairley at Trisun Care Center’s Lakeside retirement home property in San Antonio.

Trisun Care Center management did not reply to a request for comment. “It’s a profit scam when family members are court ordered to pay to visit with their loved ones,” said Michael Larsen, author of Guardianship: How Judges & Lawyers Steal Your Money (Germain Publishing, February 3, 2016). “This has already been happening in divorce cases where children are ordered to live in foster care or group homes and it’s now happening with the elderly in probate court guardianship cases.

Times are changing, however slowly. At the federal level, a report on guardianship abuse, conducted by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) for the Senate Select Committee on Aging, is expected to be released at the end of October 2016, according to Sugar. “The life of a court appointed guardianship depends on enslaving innocent and vulnerable elderly victims,” said Sugar.

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Are U.S. Probate Courts Abusing the Elderly?