Plan To Be 100

This new published Court of Appeals opinion shouldn’t surprise anyone. The COA holds that where a professional guardian/conservator resigns, and the only adult child of the ward petitions to be appointed guardian and conservator, the probate court cannot appoint a new professional guardian and conservator unless it makes a finding that the child is unsuitable.  That’s because the child has priority to be appointed.  The fact that the probate judge by-passed the child and appointed a new professional fiduciary without such evidence was reversible error.

Click here to read In Re Guardianship/Conservatorship of Harold William Gerstler.

The facts are kind of fun: a devious Aunt, a lazy guardian ad litem; but in the end the COA simply reads the statutes regarding priority of appointments and applies them to the facts.

The only thing curious about this case is that it is published. But perhaps the timing of this publication tells us something.  Perhaps, just maybe, the COA is trying to clean up the confusion left from the recently published (and revised and republished) Brody case which said that the statutory priorities were “merely a guide for the probate court’s exercise of discretion.”  [Check out the post “Better Than Nothing?” for a discussion of that case.]

Significantly, the Gerstler opinion also adopts the position that the standard of proof necessary to by-pass a person with priority is as stated in the Redd case: a preponderance. [Click here to read “Seeing Redd”.]

So, when the issue of appointment of either a guardian or conservator is in play, a party with priority is entitled to appointment unless it is shown by a preponderance of evidence that they are not suitable. That means a probate court has to have a hearing and consider evidence to make this decision. I, for one, am glad that’s clear.