
How the Elderly Lose Their Rights - CommieBobDole
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/09/how-the-elderly-lose-their-rights?mbid=social_facebook
======
caseysoftware
> _Without realizing it, the Norths had become temporary wards of the court.
> Parks had filed an emergency ex-parte petition, which provides an exception
> to the rule that both parties must be notified of any argument before a
> judge. She had alleged that the Norths posed a “substantial risk for
> mismanagement of medications, financial loss and physical harm.”_

1\. That's horrifying, especially considering their daughter was minutes away.
How was she not involved or _at the bare minimum_ notified? This does sound
like a kidnapping.

2\. The couple and daughter had no relationship with April Parks (the
guardian) prior, how did she get involved? More importantly, how did she get
letters from the couple's doctor?

3\. How was Parks allowed to hold a hearing without involving _at minimum_ the
emergency contacts for the couple? The doctor would have had that information.

4\. Once underway, it appears that further hearings, costs, etc can be billed
to the estate. How f*d is that?

~~~
Shivetya
Welcome to the hell that bureaucracy perpetuates. Criminals learn the system
and it is easy to exploit when government workers have no concern other than
to process work. So we end up with a professional class who preys on those who
cannot defend themselves as they have the power of the courts on their side.

this is the type of law and regulation that only gets changed if something
outlandish gets championed by the local press or they step on the wrong
person' toes. seeing how this goes down I would not be surprised if people
like Parks hire detectives to dig up possible "clients" just so they know who
is an easy take.

Most certainly needs to be changed and those participating need to be held
accountable.

~~~
raugustinus
Those participating quite often love the unaccountability the bureaucracy
provides them. Hiding behind a procedure is often preferred as to being out
there making a difference. The indifference some people show, especially here
in my country, to this bureaucracy is astounding. Makes my blood boil. Which
might be the reason I'm having difficulty discussing it with them.

------
Top19
Literally just came to Hackernews to post this article. I don’t really hangout
with older people or come into contact on a frequent basis, but Jesus H.
Christ this is the most horrifying thing I’ve read in terms of scams in a
while.

For what it’s worth, I think older Americans have a ton to offer to younger
people in terms of mentorship. Probably the dumbest person you know now will
grow into an older person with some valuable wisdom to share. Imagine then how
smart most older people are...

~~~
magic_beans
Not that I don't know some great older folks, but I've also encountered my
fair share of racist, narrow-minded old farts.

~~~
jakebasile
I'm trying to understand what value you thought this anecdote added to the
conversation.

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
It's a counter to the idea that old people would be great mentors to the
younger generation. If a bunch of them are racist old farts, then they won't
exactly be good mentors.

As an aside, I've been seeing a lot of people use the term "racist" as a
phrase for those who prefer certain cultural values. There is a difference
between race and culture.

~~~
jakebasile
OP never said all older people would be good mentors, they said older people
would be good mentors. Leaving out the all means the reply bringing racism
into the conversation is completely unnecessary, adds nothing to the
conversation, and just shows closed mindedness with just a hair of ironic
ageism.

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
Here we go with more -isms.

Noting that older generations tend to be more racist is not ageism, it's just
a trend. Just like how noting that Asian Americans make more money on average
than whites isn't racism, it's just the way things are.

You are right about me saying "all" when OP didn't actually say that. I've
edited my comment, thank you for the constructive criticism.

------
eppp
This same thing happened to a family friend. Her family fought it for a couple
of years but lost and all of her assets were sold. The guardian then billed
the estate for attending the funeral when she died. She was charging $200 an
hour for taking her to get her hair done.

Years later she was finally removed from the job.
[http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/local/2014/03/10/judge-...](http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/local/2014/03/10/judge-
tosses-wards-claim/6251363/)

Get your power of attorney's and medical POAs filled out to protect yourself.

------
lisper
It doesn't surprise me a bit that this happened in Nevada. That state puts on
a good show of being governed by the rule of law, but in fact it is corrupt to
its core. And they don't just screw the elderly and the gambling-addicted. I
learned this the hard way back in 2011:

[http://blog.rongarret.info/2010/12/cosmo-and-me-
part-1.html](http://blog.rongarret.info/2010/12/cosmo-and-me-part-1.html)

[http://blog.rongarret.info/2011/01/cosmo-and-me-
part-2.html](http://blog.rongarret.info/2011/01/cosmo-and-me-part-2.html)

[http://blog.rongarret.info/2011/12/cosmo-and-me-
part-3-how-w...](http://blog.rongarret.info/2011/12/cosmo-and-me-part-3-how-
wall-street.html)

And the denouement:

[http://blog.rongarret.info/2012/01/i-am-about-to-be-
silenced...](http://blog.rongarret.info/2012/01/i-am-about-to-be-
silenced.html)

The last post is entitled "How Wall Street Screwed Me" because Deutsche Bank
was the principal actor, but they could not have done it without the Nevada
legal system as a co-conspirator.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
Meh. Almost all government is corrupt if you look in the right places.

Most states have at least a few corrupt departments. Based on my experience
and knowledge wealthy, coastal states with lots of laws on the books (and lots
of departments to enforce these laws) generally have a little more breadth to
the corruption. Flyover states generally have a little more depth where
corruption is found.

~~~
1_2__4
So all states are corrupt equally and there’s no point in having a discussion
about it? Is that your assertion?

------
mindslight
Yet another pathological outcome from a legal system that operates above the
law itself. The "judges" here should be in prison for conspiracy, and
everything that was sold should be recovered as stolen property. Yet because
reams of paperwork were filled out, dated, and stamped, legal fiction
_continues_ to override the obvious reality! This system no longer exists to
mediate between real people, but as an independent organism claiming
unfettered control over us. Burn it.

------
edw519
I usually read the comments first but this time I read the article first
because there weren't any comments yet. I was aghast. Then I saw I wasn't
alone when I read the comments from you guys.

How could something so horrible happen to so many so routinely? Any what can
we techies do about it? I'm always searching for meaning in my work and I'm
having trouble remembering anything I've worked on lately that's nearly as
important as this issue.

Then I realized that the solution is already in the article:

 _In the course of his thirty-five-year career, Shafer has assumed control of
more than three thousand wards and estates and trained a generation of
guardians._

and

 _When Concetta Mormon, a wealthy woman who owned a Montessori school, became
Shafer’s ward because she had aphasia, Shafer sold the school midyear, even
though students were enrolled._

and

 _Parks and other private guardians appeared to gravitate toward patients who
had considerable assets._

It's all about the money! They don't go after poor people.

How can we high achievers turn this into a business opportunity that's a win-
win-win for everyone and put the bad guys out of business? It's almost like we
need a watsi for senior citizens. Thoughts?

~~~
gaelenh
My parents shrewdly and pre-emptively reorganized their "estate" (feels silly
calling their meager savings that) with a lawyer that specializes in this. In
Central Florida, their are enough retires that many know what's at stake (RE:
OP article, plus other money grabs when elderly required assisted living), and
lawyers have setup to attempt to prevent it.

While listening to my dad explain it all, I wrote down "Stripe Atlas for old
people's estates" in my idea notebook. Another poster mentioned setting up
nested LLC's, just a service to scale and productize it. Not just for the
elderly either, I can think of a lot of people that would want the protection
and power of obscuring money that real estate developers and politicians have
benefited from for years. It would be a real game changer.

~~~
lozenge
It could quickly be mimicked by less scrupulous people though?

------
johngalt_
This makes me distressed and angry. The last time I felt like this was when I
read an article telling about several cases when cops raped women through
"body cavity search". Unfortunately, there are several other cases of extreme
injustice and evil acts committed by people who are not and will not be
punished.

An idea that has been on my mind is to create some sort of virtual wall of
shame. It would put the name and picture of those people who have done such
terrible things and have not paid for their crimes. It would spam their emails
and social media accounts with messages. It would send emails and messages to
their relatives and friends. It would create ads targeted to where those
people live telling their story. The goal is to do everything in order to not
let such crimes be forgotten and to not let those people live normal lives
again, at least in the virtual world.

I don't know if I will ever put this plan in practice and I know it is a
dangerous idea, but each time I read something like this it makes me more
willing to start this idea.

~~~
jlavine
It's not just a dangerous idea. It's an unjust one that foregoes due process.
It's vigilante justice, like witch hunting in early modern Europe and N.
America, lynching in the Jim Crow era Southern USA, and the Hollywood
communist blacklist in the 1950s. Just because ruining people's lives via
social media is en vogue at the moment doesn't make it right. How could you
possibly know whether claims you've read are true before you decided to ruin
the lives of the accused?

~~~
logfromblammo
You can't cry "due process" for those people who have abused the system to
deny due process to others.

The only reasonable counter to those offenders is an investigative report by a
professional of the fourth estate that has a reputation for ethical practices.
Which is to say an investigative journalist rakes the muck and publishes the
embarrassing story. But those seem to be of a breed that is dying with the
newspapers.

The amateur crowdsourced journalists/influencers the likes of which come from
Anonymous and SJWs and Antifa and Black Twitter may be the only ones who care
enough to even do a cursory investigation. And they are unlikely to meet any
reasonable standard of fairness, due to unaligned incentives.

The only solution that preserves fairness is for those in the official legal
system to _police themselves_ and _relentlessly attack the corruption
occurring within their own ranks_. If that does not happen, or worse, if it
happens and those who fight corruption and blow whistles suffer damaging
retaliation from it, then the corrupt should have no reasonable expectation
that they will be treated fairly, nor those who present the appearance of
corruption, or complicity with corruption. There are no good cops as long as
bad cops retain their impunity. There are no good judges as long as the
decisions from bad judges stand unexamined and unchallenged. There are no good
lawyers as long as injustice persists.

The system we have to ensure that the innocent are protected from witch hunts,
kangaroo court, and drumhead trials is as vulnerable to subversion as any
other, and replicating it in parallel in order to prosecute that subversion
seems _inconvenient_ at best. And yet "we investigated ourselves and cleared
ourselves of all wrongdoing" is so depressingly common.

~~~
Hasz
You can't have selectively applied due process. Due process must be applied to
all without qualification for it to have any semblance of balance and
impartiality.

Muckraking is fine (there's no law that says everyone should be nice to you)
-- but there needs to be a line drawn between investigative journalism and
libel, a line the New Yorker has pretty much always stayed on the right side
of.

As for

"There are no good cops as long as bad cops retain their impunity. There are
no good judges as long as the decisions from bad judges stand unexamined and
unchallenged. There are no good lawyers as long as injustice persists."

\-- that's an incredibly binary view. By that logic, the whistle blower is
just as bad as those he blows the whistle about! There must be a gradient of
good to evil, with everyone lying somewhere between ideals. I think it is a
mistake and general disservice to lump the imperfect whistle-blower, advocate,
and reform-minded cop/judge/lawyer in with his crooked brethren. Not only does
is tarnish his or her reputation, but it also blemishes their contributions
toward a more perfect system.

~~~
meric
More than that, the gradient of good and evil exists in everyone, across
activities, across time. Many of the most evil people have done good deeds in
their lives, and many of the best people have done bad deeds also. A bad cop
or bad judge can yet become a good one.

~~~
logfromblammo
That seems most likely only after a term of incarceration in a facility
focused on rehabilitation--which simply never happens in the US, not for
commonplace criminals, and certainly not for cops and judges.

When the existing system for due process fails in this manner, should there be
a reasonable expectation for due process in whatever ad-hoc process that
arises because _justice is not being served_? I don't think so. If your job is
to provide due process, and you undermine that, then you deserve all the
vigilantism that comes your way because of it.

When you abuse the legal guardianship system to rob people of their family,
and rob their family of their money, you should count yourself lucky if all
that happens to you is that you get convicted in the regular legal system and
go to prison. Those judges that granted this woman highly abusable levels of
power after two minutes or less in an ex-parte hearing have filth on their
hands, too.

If you want to save people from vigilantism, you have to be willing to send
them to prison through the regular legal system. If you give them _de facto_
impunity, people will find other ways, less fair and impartial, to punish
them.

------
MarkPNeyer
"I robot" describes three laws of robotics. These laws were intended to
prevent robots from killing all humans, and, surprise surprise, bad things
happened.

Jesus' message largely seemed to be "the rules exist for a reason, and you
Pharisees are focused on the rules while ignoring the reason." The Pharisees
knew the letter of the law well, and they'd often try to trip Jesus up,
getting him to break the letter of the law.

Rules may be necessary but they are clearly not sufficient. I think whatever
the rules are, people will find ways to do horrible things, unless we all
value something higher than the law.

Unless we talk about and promote values directly - and all try to act in
accordance with the values - these sorts of outcomes are inevitable. This
means mindfully considering context always - instead of outsourcing our moral
decision making to courts and police and politicians.

A society where everyone agrees "injustice anywhere is a mark of shame on me"
would be a very just society. This seems like the inevitable end of "not my
problem" writ large.

------
tosstossy
Couldn't finish reading, and never felt such a strong urge to move back home
to play caretaker before.

It's always shocking to me when I see evidence of impossibly exploitive
individuals participating in such scams. But then I remember how many people
there are, and how that multiplier applies to all walks of life. Sigh.

~~~
rhizome
I had to start skipping through just to find out some glimmer of hopeful
resolution, what a pit of despair. I am livid having read this.

------
komali2
>“You can’t just walk into somebody’s home and take them!” Belshe told her.

>Parks responded calmly, “It’s legal. It’s legal.”

Years ago in college, my friend was depressed, and as a coping mechanism would
sometimes write suicide notes. He'd read them and realize he wasn't quite at
that point and it would help him get along. It was a process.

Anyway, somehow some of his notes were discovered, he was arrested (I still
don't know the details here) and put into some weird absurd protective custody
thing in a psychiatric hospital. I was allowed to see him exactly once. The
one time I managed to get in he looked _like shit_. Bags under the eyes, light
gone, just, hollow. He said they forced him to take these anti anxiety meds
that make him feel like a zombie, that if he didn't take them and admit he
needed medication, they wouldn't let him out. But he wasn't "earnest" enough
about his treatment and so he still couldn't get out of that hellscape.

After about ten days of being unable to contact him, being stonewalled by the
cops and the doctors (working with his parents, who were out of state and just
as confused/frustrated), I completely snapped. I loaded my remington and 2
boxes of shells into my truck and was planning on driving straight into the
lobby of the hospital and forcefully removing him. I was furious but remember
having a clear plan - wasn't going to shoot anyone, figured the truck through
the lobby plus a crazy fucker in a mask with a shotgun would force their hand
and let him go and then we'd drive to mexico or some shit. Consequences be
damned, silly fucking laws be damned, I was getting my friend out. I was
tossing my gunbag into the back when I got a call on my cell from him saying
he finally got out and needed a ride.

God only knows if I had gone through with it, maybe I would have come to my
senses in the parking lot, I can only hope. All I know is that there was
nothing more frustrating or infuriating I have ever experienced than watching
him go through it and being completely stonewalled. I've had friends go to
jail and I've gone to jail and that's fair, that makes sense. There's a
process. There's bail. You broke a written rule and you spend some time for
it. You get to talk to a judge. The judge gives you rules and you follow them
and you get out.

But where he was, there was no rules. You are in at the whim of the doctor and
you get out at the whim of the doctor.

I imagine the daughter felt something very similar here - where's the process?
Who's the authority? Where are the rules written down and when did she agree
to them? How could that daughter have protected herself and her family from
some absurd hidden legalese?

~~~
gertef
Not to disparage your suffering at all, but jail isn't always so much better.

> you broke a written rule and you spend some time for it.

Not true. Jail is for people _accused_ of breaking rules, not convicted. And
arrests are severely biased against certain subpopulations.

> The judge gives you rules and you follow them and you get out.

which generally involve sitting in jail because you can't afford bail, with a
nontrivial chance of losing your job due to absence, then losing your home due
to poverty.

Don't argue which injustice is worse. Fight the injustice.

[https://brooklynbailfund.org/](https://brooklynbailfund.org/)

~~~
dragonwriter
> Jail is for people accused of breaking rules, not convicted

While you make some good points, you are confusing “jail” with “pretrial
detention”; while much (but not all) pre-trial detention is done in jails,
that's not the only thing jails are used for; people do serve post-conviction
sentences in jails, too.

~~~
logfromblammo
Misdemeanor convictions (i.e. less than a year of incarceration) may be served
in a jail. Felony terms are served in prisons.

I am not very familiar with this, and it probably varies by state.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Misdemeanor convictions (i.e. less than a year of incarceration) may be
> served in a jail. Felony terms are served in prisons.

That's a common but not universal rule; California, for instance, sends felons
whose crime is not a violent or serious felony, or one that requires sex
offender registration, to county jails.

------
defined
This has to be one of the most vile, appalling stories about the widespread
abuse of power on the weak and helpless for monetary gain. The perpetrators
have as much mercy and empathy for their victims as animal predators have for
their prey, with far less justification.

And the punishment - if any - is likely to be far less than what is meted out
to some afflicted person jailed for stockpiling prescription medications for
self-treatment due to incurable pain (Richard Paey)[1].

[1]: [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/prisoner-of-
pain/](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/prisoner-of-pain/)

------
gknoy
What can we do to prevent such things from happening? Would having a trust,
rather than an estate, prevent this? (I am not even sure if that is an
intelligent question.)

~~~
bitdiddle
yes, revocable and irrevocable trusts, combined with solid powers of attorney,
living wills, etc..

Trusts essentially keep estates out of probate. Since it's the money these
criminals are after they work well towards that goal.

------
EGreg
This is one of the most infuriating things I've read in a while. How did our
legal system end up i this quagmire?

~~~
jmcgough
I had to stop reading after a bit, I got so upset. Completely unbelievable
that this could happen to someone.

~~~
mschuster91
Me too. But, on the other hand, I am not too surprised given that civil
forfeiture is legal in the US...

~~~
code_duck
And it took at least 30 years for the media to start meaningfully questioning
that practice.

~~~
mschuster91
I believe this is because it was used correctly (i.e. confiscating the actual
profits of criminals), and started to be abused after (decades of) systematic
under-funding of police departments.

~~~
code_duck
The entire way that it works - giving police a direct, personal financial
incentive to confiscate personal property with no due process, arrest or
official accusation of a crime - is clearly problematic. I personally
experienced and witnessed systematic, flagrant abuse of forfeiture in the late
90s in a small US state. The officers involved said they were especially
interested if someone could help them locate cash rather than drugs, because
they got to split it all vs. only being paid for a percentage of the drugs.

------
oh_sigh
How did Parks get notes from their doctor? Why wouldn't that be confidential?

The article said things about her finding doctors to write the notes, but how
could they get them in the first place? Wouldn't the couple need to visit the
doctor, and give the okay for them to give information to Parks?

~~~
mikx007
That's a very good point considering all medical records are covered by HIPAA
laws.

------
mrguyorama
While this seems horrible, taking care of those who are in true danger without
stripping the rights of the still cognizant is a hard problem. It's very
likely for those who need help to deny it or fight it, so in the end, you need
to be able to exert that final control, but how do you do verify that the
person being protected really needs it?

~~~
LeifCarrotson
It doesn't seem particularly difficult. A discerning judge, a caring social
worker, and an honest doctor with adequate time to consider the issue
carefully should have little problem seeing the right course of action.

It only becomes difficult when you also have to fight against the incentives.

When the 'guardian' gets to bill the estate when their doctor friend writes
something down, and the judges are listening to the letter of the law as
argued by the expert lawyers rather than the flabbergasted victims, then it's
a hard problem.

~~~
waqf
Yeah, there is no way they should be allowed to bill the estate which they
themselves are administrating.

In a normal country with a social welfare program, the guardian would have to
bill the government — if the government doesn't agree to lay down money to say
that this person needs protecting, nobody gets paid.

(In an honest no-government-programs libertarian paradise like the US
sometimes pretends to aspire to be, the guardian would have to bill some kind
of health insurer that covered this specific care: and again, the insurer
would take on the task of scrutinizing the claim.)

~~~
logfromblammo
It is likely that the person in charge of quality of life and the person in
charge of financial decisions should be different people, and somewhat
adversarial. Neither should be paid directly out of the estate, and there
would have to be a significant disincentive for any collusion between them
that does not objectively benefit the ward.

------
winter_blue
Reading this is making me extremely angry. This is one of the most disturbing
things I've read ever. It's sickening.

------
Animats
Add Nevada to the list of places not to retire.

Puerto Rico is out. The Florida Keys are still under heavy repair. South
Florida is not looking good. And hurricane season just started.

~~~
ng12
I'm planning on avoiding any "place to retire". In addition to the criminals
and scam artists who target the elderly there is an entire legal industry
doing the same -- and you can bet they flock to the South West and Florida.
Your best bet is probably somewhere like the Dakotas or Montana.

~~~
macintux
Living in bitterly cold states would certainly limit the amount of retirement
savings I need. I live in a moderately cold one now, Montana would kill me
before I reach 70.

~~~
rsynnott
Norway and Sweden, both countries which tend to get pretty cold in the winter,
have life expectancies around 82 (a little higher than the US). Northern
Europe in general, really; life expectancies are generally similar to the US
or a bit higher, and it’s not particularly common to migrate to warmer
countries for retirement.

Actually, my impression was that extreme heatwaves in hot places tend to kill
more elderly people than extreme cold in cold ones.

~~~
macintux
Using Wolfram Alpha it certainly looks like Billings compares unfavorably to
Oslo in terms of coldest temperatures during the winter. Norway appears more
moderate, I assumed thanks to the ocean.

[http://www.wolframalpha.com/widgets/gallery/view.jsp?id=af6f...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/widgets/gallery/view.jsp?id=af6f68d0d4a05be5938e0f09c414703a)

~~~
rsynnott
Oslo’s fairly far south; I’d imagine the more northerly cities would be more
comparable.

------
dennisgorelik
This is a masterpiece that made judges biased toward professional guardians:

\---

In 1995, he persuaded the Nevada Senate Committee on Government Affairs to
write a bill that allowed the county to receive interest on money that the
public guardian invested. “This is what I want you to put in the statute, and
I will tell you that you will get a rousing hand from a couple of judges who
practice our probate,” he said

\---

------
millstone
How can I help protect my parents from this scam?

~~~
bitdiddle
estate planning

~~~
mitochondrion
Trusts and LLCs out the ass. Legal entities within legal entities within legal
entities, held offshore in some cases, and so on. Personally, I literally
don't hold a single titled property in my own name, and never will.

~~~
travisp
Talk to a lawyer and don't follow this blindly. In most cases, this is a bad
idea and Family LLCs, entities within entities, offshore trusts or
corporations, and other such things in estate planning often border on scams
themselves. A very simple living trust that holds assets, with instructions on
what happens if you become disabled is probably most of the protection that
the vast majority of people need (disclaimer: this is not legal advice, I am
not a lawyer).

~~~
yason
_disclaimer: this is not legal advice, I am not a lawyer_

Just curious since this keeps coming up. Why would people add these IANAL
disclaimers, especially on an anonymous forum?

I would assume that if you wanted to stand out as a lawyer in a discussion you
would have to explicitly announce yourself to be one and because this is
internet most people still wouldn't believe you (even if you really were a
lawyer). I cannot fathom how would that go the other way around.

Disclaiming that "I'm not a lawyer" sounds a bit like an introduction to a
string of other disclaimers, as in me not being a medical doctor, CS
professor, airline pilot, or law enforcement official either.

Is there a court case where someone took, out of thin air, someone else's word
as if he was a lawyer while he wasn't and never said he was, suffered some
losses because of it, and actually won in court? Or what's the reason for
adding the IANAs?

~~~
gknoy
> Why would people add these IANAL disclaimers, especially on an anonymous
> forum

I would imagine it's partly a courtesy ("You should take this with a grain of
salt") and partly a CYA ("Under no circumstance should you take this as legal
advice, nor sue me for giving bad legal advice, etc").

------
pnathan
The article describes inadequate accountability, crony relationships in the
legal & medical systems, nepotism, lack of transparency.

All of these are alleviated and addressed through proper governance measures.
This is a problem that is solvable in large part.

------
waltwalther
Very well-written article that left me with a sick, sick feeling. I am glad
attention has been brought to this blatant crime.

------
stuaxo
Appalling. One of the few New Yorker articles I've read to the end, really
hope more come to justice.

------
nindalf
Off topic, but this is why I read the comments first when I see links to some
websites. They simply take too long to get to the point. I spent 5 minutes on
this and all I've learned so far is that for some reason, courts deem certain
people incompetent and appoint guardians. I don't know why they do this, how
the assess the people, and how the guardian benefits. I want to find out but I
lack the patience to read through the New Yorker's somewhat pompous style and
rely on the quotes in the top comments.

~~~
bjelkeman-again
Isn't this the normal writing styke for a lot of US traditional media?
European newspapers I think start from the key point they want to get across
and expand from there.

~~~
RUG3Y
It's long-form journalism and I think it's perceived to have more value than
bullet-point style reporting. While there can be value in long-form stories,
98% of the time I just want the bullet points so I can decide if the story is
worth reading.

------
pfarnsworth
This is literally a security bug in the legal code.

Why doesn't anyone care about this? How do we FORCE our politicians to fix
these legal bugs so that we are protected?

~~~
zanny
> How do we FORCE our politicians

By design, you don't force politicians to do anything, you just vote against
the ones doing what you don't want.

In the US, the entire electoral system is built around (for the benefit of
both politician and sponsor) obfuscating responsibility away from
representatives and holding them to the least account for laws passed or
policy in place as possible, and then limiting the ability of constituents to
replace them when they want to via gerrymandering / private campaigning.

This is just one drop in a sea of evil brought about by broken election
systems enabling corrupt laws and policy that nobody is ever held to account
for.

------
ransom1538
Ok. First, DAs and jurys _hate_ people that take advantage of children or the
elderly. When I say _hate_ \- it is a true understatement. All that needs to
happen here is a report to a DA.

Second, if you have grand/parents over 75 ask them to put all their financials
on mint and expose this account to multiple portions of the family. Mint is
read only. This way when things get strange - off to the DA.

------
gshakir
Is this a problem with the laws of Nevada? Can it be prevented? Hopefully it
is not exploitable in other states.

------
handy101
The VA fiduciary program has similar problems to this.I believe their fees are
capped to 3-4% of pay.

------
handy101
I believe the VA fiduciary program has similar problems but it does cap fees
at 3-4%.

------
simulationimin
Disgusting and terrifying.

------
dennisgorelik
tl;dr
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgLe32qEnBc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgLe32qEnBc)

------
alexanderstears
This is terrifying, I have elderly parents and I hope that they would call me
if something like this happened to them but I don't doubt that they could get
ambushed and something hard-to-unwind could happen.

The crux of the problem seems to be that the State allows guardians to profit
from their arrangement. It's ludicrous that courts enforce guardian's
financial claims against people who are presumed to be incapable of
independence.

Edit - it looks like April Park was doing things illegally. She's facing >200
felony charges:

[http://www.ktnv.com/news/contact-13/four-indicted-in-
unprece...](http://www.ktnv.com/news/contact-13/four-indicted-in-
unprecedented-guardianship-abuse-case)

~~~
zitterbewegung
IANAL but If you want to fix this get your parents to sign a power of attorney
over to you.

~~~
Swizec
> IANAL but If you want to fix this get your parents to sign a power of
> attorney over to you.

If you are said parent, which of the kids do you absolutely trust to never
ever screw you over no matter how much incentive there is and no matter how
hard a times they fall on?

That's what I'm worried about when getting old(er). You give your trust to an
amazing person in their 40's with the best of lives. They'll take care of you.
Then they fall on hard times 10 years later and oh hey look they have power of
attorney over all this money maybe if they help themselves juuuuuust a little
bit ...

When I was 10 my dad drained my and my sister's savings[1] account that way.
Just a little, just to get over the hump in his business, he'll put it all
back later of course. 20 years later and afaik he still hasn't.

Having access to other people's money when you have none of your own is
terrible. I don't know if I'd trust _myself_ with that, let alone somebody
else.

[1] of course it wasn't really _our_ savings, think of it more like a college
fund my parents started for each kid when they were born

~~~
gertef
But really, what's wrong with that?

Why is someone entitled to control accumulated wealth after they lose their
faculty?

Most parents live for their children. If a parent doesn't want to give wealth
to their children, that's fine; the parent can give wealth to their
grandchildren in trust, or anyone on the world they choose.

~~~
pc86
This is disgusting. It's their assets and it should be handled in the way(s)
they determined when they had full control of their faculties. Anything short
of that is fraud, theft, and saying "what's wrong with that?" to someone just
stealing money from a parent is horrible.

~~~
blackbagboys
This is ridiculous property-rights absolutism. Obviously it would wrong to
leave them completely bereft and unable to support themselves, but people with
compromised mental faculties lose plenty of other rights; there's no reason
they get to sit like a senile dragon on a hoard of accumulated wealth.

~~~
kbos87
Are you serious? That wealth belongs to them until they make a sound decision
to part with it. If that means they’ve decided to purchase something and
haven’t been deceived, great. If that means they pass it on to someone of
their choosing when they die, that’s their right too. When someone takes
advantage of their weakened mental state, that is just plain reprehensible.

------
burntrelish1273
My mom and aunt are fighting over this right now.

My aunt moved in _next to_ my grandparents some 30 years ago and has cared for
them since that time. Then around 10 years ago, my grandfather died. Since
that time, her assets have reduced by over $400k while receiving spouse
military and civil service retirement and social security and payments for
long-term care (over $7k in income per month). In the past 3 years, my
grandmother has become more difficult and lost her mind. More recently, my
mother is getting more and more upset that my aunt got financial and medical
POA without informing her because my aunt pays her personal credit card bills,
uses my grandmother's card as hers, eats out often/pays for other people's
meals and generally seems irresponsible with money. So my mom, in an effort to
prevent all the money from being wasted, cashed out a significant certificate
of deposit and created a new account for it at a new bank. That way, if my
grandmother (their mother) needs money, it will be there.

Un/fortunately, my mother also involved the state's elder financial abuse
protection department whom made a determination that she was the elder abuser
when my aunt recently gifted my grandmother's house to herself, in addition to
two vehicles (a car and a van). And now there are also lawsuits, so now
lawyers will get what scraps they were fighting over. Ugh. Stupid money family
drama sucks.

Summary:

Don't put any adult children's names on any accounts. Bank accounts,
investments, CDs, etc. should be payable upon death.

Do a will and living revocable trust. Probate and taxes can also take your
kids' inheritance.

All adult children able to _see but not use or modify_ credit card and banking
accounts, and agree to financial decisions together.

Place a lock on elderly parent's credit reports.

Have parents split up/allocate inheritance before losing their mind/s or
passing away.

Make wills specific so there are fewer arguments.

Have a single place (ie fireproof safe) where keys, documents, online
passwords, bills, assets, properties are inventoried and include whom to call
to cancel, transfer, etc.

Make end-of-life and upon death directives clear and precise.

If doing burial or cremation, get it pre-need because it's much cheaper and
much nicer for the family.

~~~
gertef
Interesting that your aunt cared for their mother for 30 years, drawing a
small compensation rate, and your mother just took an interest in
grandmother's care decades later when her inheritance started to dwindle.

~~~
LeifCarrotson
I'm optimistic that you're just playing devil's advocate here, so I'll respond
politely, because this article has my blood simmering. Not boiling yet, but
close.

One important correction: The grandfather was aware of the finances for the
first 20 of 30 years, the OP says that the losses occurred "since that time".
So it's 10 years, not 30; multiply any compensation by 3.

A second, more important correction: the 'compensation' to the aunt comes from
drawing on grandma's assets and also her income. OP asserts that grandma's
income is $7k/month, or $840k. Added to the $400k in assets spent/lost, this
is one and a quarter million dollars.

$13k/year is not enough to be visibly irresponsible with money, it's a
reasonable or even small rate for family care. But $125k/year is
unsustainable, as demonstrated by grandma's dwindling assets.

~~~
ryandrake
Counter-devil's advocate: The older you get, the more (exponentially
sometimes) expensive it gets to keep you going from day to day. Depending on
one's health, the cost of surviving an extra 6 months could be as much as the
cost to stay living during the previous 10 years.

~~~
csydas
Counter-Counter I suppose:

Regardless of the cost of living, death does very strange things to people and
can flip an entire history of a relationship on its head. It happened with my
family where a relatively calm and expected death ended up estranging members
of the family because of what the deceased had written in the will.

I really am not looking forward to my parents' passing, as I live (and
probably will still be) living abroad, though I am executor of their estate.
Inheritance always brings out bad blood.

------
louithethrid
God im so angry on how they basically evicted the old man and his wife. I
might be finally able to contemplate why having a gun as final defense against
such lawfull robberys is a good option.

This type of behaviour can happen at insolvencys in germany too. If you get a
corrupt insolvency-manager, he will ride the remains of your company (even if
it could be saved) into countless law battles with creditors - where the
insolvency managers firm is the defending party of the company its managing.
This can go on until the company-corpse is sucked dry.

~~~
0xfeba
I have to admit, the daughter murdering Parks and the judge seemed more and
more possible as the article went on with the government seemingly fully in on
it. That would definitely send a message.

It must be terrifying to feel so helpless against the state.

~~~
gertef
Defense of self and family is not murder.

~~~
komali2
It is when you kill the members of the ruling body.

This is why "2nd amendment protects you from the government" arguments are
absurd. Attacking the government is illegal - if you find a legal way to do
it, the government will protect itself from bodily harm by declaring whatever
you did illegal.

EDIT: This is not an argument of moral right versus wrong, this is about the
definition of "illegal," which only has function as a concept if there's an
actual government.

For example, we can all agree that shooting unarmed civilians is wrong, right?
Or taking their cash money? But, it's not illegal. Cops do it all the time,
and in the case of cash money it's explicitly _legal_.

I would love to be challenged on this point, so I would greatly appreciate if
you could spice your downvotes with a quick thought on why I'm wrong.

~~~
deadmetheny
The 2nd Amendment allows citizenry to be armed in case it becomes necessary to
overthrow a corrupt government that no longer serves the needs of the people,
the government is no longer legitimate if that threshold is broken and what it
determines is illegal doesn't matter anymore. Killing in retribution when the
law fails isn't really a 2nd Amendment usage case, though.

~~~
komali2
>When the law fails

When would the government admit that the law has failed?

>Overthrown a corrupt government

When would the government admit it is corrupt? When would it "allow" itself to
be violently deposed?

~~~
deadmetheny
I explicitly addressed this.

>the government is no longer legitimate if that threshold is broken

The 2nd Amendment exists because the writers of the US Constitution had just
finished overthrowing a government they did not believe represented the
people, and wanted to ensure that if the replacement government ever ceased to
represent the will of the people, that the people would have the means to
forcibly remove it.

~~~
dragonwriter
No, it was written largely because the writers of the Constitution were in the
process of dealing with the imminent collapse of a central government that had
proven incapable of dealing with pressing security problems, and assuring
states that the new central government with greater authority would not use
that authority to hamstring the states in the event that it, too, was not
competent in that regard was important.

They had also, several years before, been involved in the state (formerly
colony) governments’ acting collectively to rebel against an unrepresentative
(by simple fact that the people were not, directly or by the intermediary of
representation of their local government in the central one, represented; this
was not a matter of feeling) central government, and, sure, preserving the
states’ capacity to do that in the event that the federal government became
unresponsive or overbearing was a consideration.

The 2nd Amendment is unique in having an _explicit statement of purpose_ ,
which for some reason those who claim to be it's Forrest defenders always
ignore.

~~~
dragonwriter
Missed the edit window, but “Forrest” should be “foremost”.

Mobile keyboard autocorrect is fun.

------
gt_
Chilling read. I have never heard of this but it's making me much more eager
to have children.

Does anyone know why the daughter was powerless, or not their guardian
herself? This felt like a hole in the narrative.

~~~
gervase
This is the most terrifying part! What would prevent some calculating third
party from doing this to my parents? Is it solely down to whether or not the
children have the ability to pay costly legal bills?

I dearly, dearly hope that there was something I missed, and that it isn't
just a case of bureaucratic maneuvering to deprive that couple of everything
they owned.

~~~
soundwave106
Normally, this _is_ the standard process in most states that I am aware of. So
yes, this is a big gap in my mind in the New Yorker article.

Taking Florida's as an example
([http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Displ...](http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0700-0799/0744/Sections/0744.312.html)),
the state gives _strong_ preference to bloodline or marriage. The court has to
declare in writing pretty specific reasons to appoint a professional guardian.

Nevada's laws
([https://www.leg.state.nv.us/NRS/NRS-159.html](https://www.leg.state.nv.us/NRS/NRS-159.html)),
although not as strong as Florida, does seem to indicate preference for
bloodline or spouse.

So I wonder how they ended up with a professional guardian / fraudster in the
first place. I understand that sometimes this happens due to family
disagreements over who should be appointed, or inability to care for one
reason or another. Maybe that happened in these cases.

Incidentally, you can also declare, in your will, a medical power of attorney
which basically pre-lays out the guardianship lineage in your preferred order.
From what I understand, courts tend to use the medical power of attorney
preferences well over anything else, so this is probably one of the strongest
ways to prevent this sort of situation.

~~~
bzbarsky
I think the article does in fact explain how this could have happened:

1) The professional guardian moved for an emergency ex parte hearing, without
notification to family members, getting to speak to the court first, and
unopposed.

2) The professional guardian mentioned the family members in her court
filings, and indicated they were unfit for various reasons.

3) The courts didn't really check the professional guardian's claims.

Those seem like facts, assuming the article can be trusted. What follows are
my conjectures based on those facts:

4) The judge is in on it, fundamentally. At the very least, he thinks
professional guardians are just a better idea than family members, and hence
he was just looking for justification to ignore the preference-for-bloodline
statute.

5) Item #3 is a consequence of #4 to some extent. The judge has no real
incentive to double-check things here, and it's extra work, so why do it? The
resulting lack of consequences described in the article indicates that this
was a rational call on the judge's part, as far as that goes.

6) Item #2 gives cover to the judge to act on the predisposition I describe in
item #4.

~~~
ryandrake
Re your point #4: From the article:

"Parks drove a Pontiac G-6 convertible with a license plate that read
“crtgrdn,” for “court guardian.” In the past twelve years, she had been a
guardian for some four hundred wards of the court."

...

"Norheim awarded a guardianship to Parks, on average, nearly once a week. She
had up to a hundred wards at a time. “I love April Parks,” he said at one
hearing"

I would be shocked if this guy isn't getting some kind of payment from Ms.
Parks.

~~~
bzbarsky
I have to agree that my gut feeling is that the judge is on the take here. But
there's no really hard evidence for that in the article, and I really hope not
in reality, because otherwise just reshuffling the judge around to kids' cases
is a complete travesty.

In any case, unfortunately all that's important for my #4 is that the judge be
predisposed towards professional guardians, for whatever reason.

------
caublestone
The definition of rights evolves with access to information and standard of
education. What was once the right to own land became the right to vote became
the right to fair wages. For most of history the exclusion of rights was
inherited at birth by race, gender and class. But as we live longer and
understand sickness better we recognize temporal states of being that
challenge our standards of freedom. A person who becomes sick does not have
equal access to care nor do they have free choice in treatments having to
relinquish control to doctors, insurers and regulators. Perhaps it is time to
define the rights of the sick and move society towards equality.

~~~
zby
I think you did not read the article - did you?

