Update to mom threatening me w/legal action.
Hello sweet forum members,
Here is the latest of what happened w/my mom about 2 weeks ago:
I managed to get hold of my mom's friend that had been periodically helping my mom. I asked if she was still involved, and she said no, that Mom had gotten very ugly toward her. There was one episode that was very bad, so this friend has cut my mom out of her life. Not too surprising.
I got to talk to my lawyer in Mom's county/state. He assured me that resigning as Mom's POA won't land me in any kind of trouble. Before he called, he searched in the ROD offices to see if any recent changes in POA have been filed for her, and she did appoint someone else. That's good news.
Her state (and mine) do have parental filial responsibility laws on the books, but my lawyer has never seen it enforced. However, they can impose criminal penalties for failure to support a parent; it's a Class II misdemeanor and if there are multiple offenses it can go to a Class I. However, there are defenses:
# 1 is that I don't have a duty to provide for a parent until I have provided for my own immediate family. # 2 is that I would have "reasonable cause" to neglect her; there are several things that can be argued about reasonable cause, such as the relationship issues being strained and the sexual abuse that occurred when I was a child. # 3 is she has to not have sufficient means to support herself. He thinks that would go toward the Medicaid issue - that if she was eligible for admission to a NH or AL, that she would have the ability to support herself through government assistance.
Doing elder law for years, he has seen cases where APS has gotten involved because adult children w/POA were not sufficiently overseeing their elders' care, or because adult children were stealing money from the elders or abusing them in other ways. That's the only time he has seen trouble for adult children.
He’s also seen plenty of cases where the people who are POA for someone gets fed up and says they won’t do it anymore, and then the elderly person doesn’t have someone who will do it. That's when the courts have to get guardianship. He has seen cases where the children will not step up to take guardianship; they don’t show up for the hearing or they do show up and say they don’t want to it. And then the court has to make the parent a ward of the state.
In a criminal case, the DA’s office would have to choose to prosecute me. He doesn’t see them using their resources to do that. They are overworked and understaffed. And my being out of state would require even more resources so he thinks the odds of this happening are very low, almost zero, that I would ever be held responsible for anything.
He did caution me about NHs. He had a case where an elder was in a NH and started running low on funds. The NH sent the woman's adult son a letter stating they wouldn’t keep the parent unless the child signed a personal guarantee of payment. He said CMS rules that govern NHs say that NHs cannot legally do that. He successfully handled this case and his paralegal got that elder on Medicaid. If I ever get a letter like that, get his office involved right away,
It wrenches my heart that my relationship with my mom is so terrible. I have a lot of grief about it. Many times I have wished for her to pass on so that I could have some type of resolution. I'm beginning to see that there will no real resolution - only sadness and grief for what could have been.
Hugs and blessings to all.
I pray that you can now find some peace and strength in dealing with your moms craziness, even if that means not dealing with her.
Well done! Taking care of you and ensuring you are protected.
It sounds horrible.
Filial law isn't being used anywhere. Ever.
I once tried to find a single case and came up with one that was a hugely wealthy person allowing an incompetent parent to live in squalor.
Filial law doesn't happen in the USA today and anyone threatening it needs to be laughed off the planet.
I had this issue with my sister, and all types of people kept calling me on my job wanting this, sign this and etc. When I lost my job, I got a temp assignment at a temp agency. It wasn't until I got a temp job for people with mental disabilities where I found out that I didn't need to do any of this. An advocate told me that my sister was an adult and did not need me as a guardian. She was appointed an attorney later on after she was placed. My dad took over from there until he passed away at ninety-three. My sister, rest her soul, died six months after dad died. It was a sad situation. In a sense, I'm glad he did get some happiness in life after retirement to enjoy his life even though things didn't go well for him or mom with their marriage.
However, in my case, I'm just tired of suffering. I can't see myself paying $10,000 grand a month for a nursing home when I barely see this amount of money on any paycheck after a year!
These people are crazy. The can take their filial law and shove it. If I get too old and can't function, just push my a** off a cliff!
I would have nothing to do with her and am very relieved you have resigned your POA.
I have never in my life heard of an instance of filial law being imposed on anyone.
https://www.elderlawanswers.com/requiring-adult-children-to-pay-for-aging-parents-7666#:~:text=More%20than%20half%20of%20all,authorities%20rarely%20enforce%20these%20laws.
Are the filial responsibility laws more about contributing financially towards parents care? Or do they actually say a child has to do POA type work and arrange care etc for the parents?
You have so much self awareness regarding what has occurred in your life. That is going to take you far in working towards achieving moving forward.
Yes, of course, you are sad about not having the relationship that you would have liked to have had with your mother, but you know that it wasn’t possible.
Wishing you all the best.