Legal Services for Seniors

Acadiana Legal Service Corporation

Thursday, June 28, 2012Lafayette Greenhouse

Who are we?

Private law firmStarted in 1979Non-profitNo chargeCivil cases only

Technology GrantEvery Thursday morningAt the Greenhouse on the Thruway½ hour on a legal topicInstruction on touch-screen computersGet legal information on your own

lawhelp.org/la

Decision-Making Capacity

• Presumption is that you have the right to decide

• If over 18

• And a court has not taken it away

Legal Capacity

Who gets to make important decisions for you?

• Medical decisions

• Self-care

• Management of finances

• Executing a Will (Testament)

Judging Capacity

How can you tell if someone is able to make their own decisions?

• Court process

• Infirmity impairs ability to consistently make or

communicate reasoned decisions

•Should be limited

•A Curator is appointed

•Can be lifted

Interdiction (Guardianship)

How does someone lose the right to make their own decisions?

Interdiction Alternatives

Someone you care about is having trouble remembering to pay their bills on time.

You don’t think they need to be interdicted.

They DO need some help, but are afraid to ask .

What can you suggest to avoid interdiction?

• Representative Payee/Joint Accounts

• Elderly Protective Services

• Mandate/Power of Attorney

• Living Will

Interdiction Alternatives

Your family has an adult child who abuses drugs or alcohol.

Mental illness is causing a friend or family member to act irrationally, dangerously.

Their behavior repeatedly causes problems.

Can’t you just “Lock him up”?

What to do?

• Danger to self or others

• Mental illness/Substance abuse

• Court order required

• NOT about competence

• Temporary

• Emergency certificates

Civil Commitment

Delegating Capacity

Your declining vision is making it hard for you to drive or write checks to pay your bills each month.

You’d like your daughter to handle some of your shopping and banking for you.

What can you do to give her that power?

• Must have capacity to give

• Can not be taken, only given

• Should be limited

• Writing sometimes required (health care)

• Agent must act responsibly

Delegating Capacity - Mandate

Living Wills (Advance Directives)

• Patient is making the decision

• Must have capacity to execute directive

• Limited to certified “terminal and irreversible”

• Selects types of treatment/procedures

Living Will Example Provisions

• You make your own decisions

• Curator or Tutor

• Health care agent

• Living Will

• State law

Who has the Right to make your Medical Decisions?

You are in a serious car wreck.

Acadian Ambulance brings you to the Emergency Room unconscious.

The doctor says you need surgery.

Who decides whether you have surgery or not?

Who has the Right to make your Medical Decisions?

• Patient• Tutor/Curator• Health Care Agent• Spouse not judicially separated• Adult child• Sibling• Ascendants or descendants• In loco parentis

Medical Decision Makers (in LA)

YOU Make the Call!

• Your husband needs a transfusion

• You don’t want him to have it

•His sisters say transfuse him or they’ll sue

•His Living Will says “no transfusions”

•His brother has his health care power of attorney

•His brother says “transfuse him”

YOU Make the Call!

• Your 40 year old son’s kidneys have shut down,

but he refuses dialysis

• He knows this is “how the Russians plan to

corrupt his precious bodily fluids”

• He understands that his heart may fail

• He has no Living Will, Health Care Agent, or other

living relatives

YOU Make the Call!

• Your 89 year old wife is terminal and comatose

•Without artificial nutrition & hydration, she will

lose her life in a few days

•She has no Health Care Agent or Living Will

•Two of your adult children say, “put in the tubes”

•The other adult child says “leave her alone”

•You say “withhold treatment”

YOU Make the Call!

• Your are in the emergency room after a car crash

• You’re unconscious, need your spleen removed

• Hospital has no prior history with you (no medical

history, no Power of Attorney, no Living Will, no

idea who your relatives might be)

• Will they do the operation?

Questions?

Legal Services for Seniors

Acadiana Legal Service Corporation

Thursday, June 28, 2012Lafayette Greenhouse