How an Old Man Almost got Declared Incompetent because He Considered Paying for Alcoholism Treatment

I was practicing elder-law and received a request from the court to represent an old guy named Martin. That kind of request was not unusual in my line of work. Local judges often asked me to represent elders who wanted to object when someone was trying to subject them to a guardianship. Martin was not an ordinary case.

Martin was a retired corporate finance officer. He was sixty-five years old and looked eighty. I was older than he was. He had been drinking a fifth of whiskey a day in his garage for a few years and had been hospitalized several times because of falls he took while drunk. His wife, who had separated from him because of his drinking, had called our local Adult Protective Services. The Adult Protective Services investigator, upon discovering that Martin had far too much money to qualify for public benefits, called her favorite private fiduciary. The private fiduciary called her lawyer and shortly thereafter Martin received a petition asking that the private fiduciary — a person Martin had never heard of — be appointed to make medical and financial decisions for him. He told the court investigator that he objected to that plan, and the court called me.

I called Martin. Ordinarily, when I called someone, the court had appointed me to…