Bills that would bring oversight to Michigan's guardianship system voted out of committee

By: Heather Catallo

LANSING, Mich. (WXYZ) — The 7 Investigatorshave been exposing problems in Michigan’s guardianship system for six years. Today several bills that will bring new oversight to the system were voted out of committee in the Michigan legislature and are now on their way to potentially becoming law.

Since 2017, the 7 Investigators have been revealing how easy it can be for some people to be declared legally incapacitated and put under guardianship or conservatorship. That means you lose the ability to make your own medical decisions, financial decisions, get married, vote – even whether you can have a Do Not Resuscitate order. Some families say the system can sometimes result in loved ones removed from their homes and thousands of dollars of their savings spent by strangers.

“A guardian was appointed, I didn’t know him – found out he had 400 wards,” said Christine Abood, who says her mother was placed with a professional guardian by the Oakland County Probate Court. “She died under that guardianship because of neglect.” 

Abood and other activists testified in front of the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. 

“Anxiety and panic attacks are a new normal for me after my precious 89-year-old mother was put into a guardianship and isolated for over 14 months. For 14 months I cried myself to sleep,” said Cynthia Mifsud. 

“I think that we all have the understanding that these bills are intended to do a lot of good and hopefully prevent some of the horrible tragedies that has happened to some of your families and loved ones from happening to anybody else,” said House Judiciary Chair Rep. Kelly Breen (D-Novi). 

The bills will make several changes to the current laws, including requiring professional guardians to be certified, mandating professional guardians to visit their wards more often, and one of the bills will also create the Office of State Guardian (OSG). 

“This Office of State Guardian would be responsible for receiving complaints and investigating them against guardians and conservators who are believed to be enacting financial or other abuses on their wards. The goal is that the OSG would then work with the Attorney General’s office on complaints that did involve improper criminal conduct,” said Rep. Betsy Coffia (D-Traverse City) when the bill was introduced. 

Attorney General Dana Nessel formed the Elder Abuse Task Force in 2019, and the task force has spent the last 4 years trying to reform the laws. 

Today Nessel applauded the Michigan House Judiciary Committee for voting the bills out of their committee to the full House. 

“These guardrails are necessary to protect some of Michigan's most vulnerable residents,” said Nessel in a press release. “These reforms have been recommended time and time again, first by the Michigan Supreme Court in 1998, by then-Governor Granholm in 2007, and again just last term - with no movement. Michigan’s elderly residents don’t have time to wait for these protections to be signed into law and I applaud the House Judiciary Committee for recognizing this and advancing this critical legislation.” 

According to Nessel and the Task force, the bi-partisan legislative package will:

• Require a judge to justify on the record why a family member who is willing to serve as a guardian is not suitable. While the law already provides that family members have priority, the modification serves as an additional safeguard to ensure family members get due consideration;
• Eliminate a judge’s ability to prevent a challenge to an appointed guardianship/conservatorship for up to six months;
• Require guardian and conservator certification and visitation frequency;
• Establish a clear asset/income threshold for appointment of a conservator;
• Set standards for the Guardian ad Litem report to the court;
• Protect personal items of sentimental value from being discarded;
• Establish a right to attorney throughout the proceedings;
• Establish additional protections for individuals before removing them from their homes;
• Improve the basic standard for medical testimony; and more.    

“I would suggest that a lot of the folks who work in the system have gone nose blind. When you come in from the outside, you smell it – there’s some things that are not right. And we need to fix it,” said Assistant Attorney General Scott Teter, Financial Crimes Division Chief for Nessel. The Michigan Guardianship Association (MGA) was removed from the task force earlier this year when the 7 Investigators revealed audio recordings of their lobbyist calling the AG’s group a ‘farce.’

Today the MGA’s Vice President pushed back against the bills during her testimony.

“MGA believes the current guardianship system in Michigan is in need of major reform and should be improved and strengthened to benefit Michigan’s most vulnerable population. However, these bills before you are not the right way to go about reforming the system,” said MGA Vice President Georgia Callis, who owns Guardian Care Inc., and according to the Attorney General’s office has 600 wards. 

Despite that opposition, all 5 bills were voted out of committee. They now head to the full House and then on to Senate Judiciary Committee. 

Task force members say they are constantly taking feedback from stakeholders and making adjustments with the legislation. They say they’re hoping to get these signed into law as soon as possible.

“We cannot rely on a system that continues to fail the people in it. And that’s what these bills are designed to address,” said Teter. 

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Bills that would bring oversight to Michigan's guardianship system voted out of committee