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| Courtesy photo | Ruth Ann Strong in her Wethersfield home. |
Conservatorships recently fell under public scrutiny with singer Britney Spears’ famous case, and a local resident fighting her own conservatorship battle has come forward with her own story.
77-year-old Ruth Strong, of Wethersfield, won her appeal case in Hartford Superior Court this summer and is now taking action against her former conservator.
According to evidence cited at court hearings, Strong was admitted to St. Francis Hospital in Feb. 2017 and was appointed an involuntary conservator to handle her estate that March. Two days later, her conservator, Attorney Lisa Foy, placed Strong in the Hebrew Center for Health & Rehabilitation in West Hartford. In May 2017 Foy transferred $42,837 – Strong’s entire savings - from her bank account into a trust fund.
Foy then elected to “spend down” Strong’s savings to pay for the portion of her nursing home stay that was not covered by Medicare or Medicaid, from April to June 2017.
The attorney did not file the required inventory of Strong’s estate until Feb. 2018, according to documents.
In his memorandum of decision dated June 30, Superior Court Judge Cesar Noble ruled Foy accountable for mishandling Strong’s savings and leaving her liable to debt with the nursing home. This allows Strong to pursue damages and potentially recover her lost savings.
This came nearly two years after Newington Probate Court Judge Robert Randich approved Foy’s accounting and ruled Strong responsible for a $2,000 nursing home bill.
Noble reversed these decisions, citing they were “not reasonably drawn from the facts.”
Strong is now suing Foy for the $42k in addition to damages and negligence.
Attorney Marilyn Denny, who represented Strong in Probate Court, had her client’s conservatorship status changed to voluntary and made it possible for her to return home in 2018.
“Ruth’s been living at home in Wethersfield successfully for two years now,” said Denny, who though now retired, still keeps in close contact with Strong. “Ruth’s been disabled for a long time and she’s lived really frugally, so to have her life savings depleted was devastating.”
As the judge said in his decision, other options that could have been employed to shelter Strong’s finances while she received home care included a prepaid funeral plot or a pooled trust.
“Probate statute says if a conservator is going to put someone in a nursing home there has to be a court hearing to determine if there is a less restrictive alternative,” Denny said, later adding, “A good conservator listens to you and does what you want when what you want is reasonable.”
The Connecticut Legal Rights Project became involved with the case because conservatorship laws are an issue close to the heart of CLRP founder and executive director Kathy Flaherty.
“Her conservator did not do everything she could have done to preserve Ms. Strong’s assets and deprived our client of being able to use that money for other things,” Flaherty told the Herald this week.
The Newington resident is glad to see conservatorships get more attention due to recent national news. Spears, who has been pushing for years to end her conservatorship with her estranged father, asserted that many actions taken by conservators are not in their clients’ best interest.
“The system is set up to protect people that other people believe need protecting,” Flaherty said. “There are incentives for the conservator to do things that none of us would consider protection. The legal system deprives people of a certain level of autonomy in their lives in the guise of doing it for their own good.”
Flaherty lobbied for changes in Connecticut’s conservatorship laws, which were last updated in 2007. One issue with the system is that conservators are supposed to be audited at random, but this often does not occur, according to Flaherty, who has also fought against conservators who force medication and controversial therapies like electric shock.
“When it comes to people with psychiatric disabilities the system allows treatment to be done by force,” she said. “Folks have been talking about these issues for decades but couldn’t get mainstream media to pay attention. A lot more people are joining the conversation since the Britney Spears case and the Netflix movie, ‘I Don’t Care.’”
Strong is doing well these days, looking forward to the purchase of an exercise bike with a go-ahead from her new voluntary conservator, Jessica.
“Since I came home from the nursing home my legs haven’t been as strong,” she told the Herald Thursday.
Social Security and covid-19 relief are helping her with the cost of living until her case for damages is settled in court.
“If it wasn’t for Attorney Denny I’d probably still be in the nursing home,” Strong said. “She is wonderful.”
A health aide and nurse help her at home and she’s working on getting stronger.
Foy
could not be reached for comment this week. The phone number listed for
her Simsbury office is no longer in service and the office appeared to
be closed for some time.
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