Are you the subject of a guardianship proceeding in West Palm Beach? Is the proceeding unfounded and meant to abuse process? You may want to take a second and read about this interesting case out of the Fourth District Court of Appeals in and for West Palm Beach.
Palm Beach Guardianship
- Guardianship is supposed to be used to protect a ward who is weak and unable to take care of themselves.
- An interested party will petition the West Palm Beach guardianship court to examine an individual and determine competency.
- Then a panel of two to three experts will be appointed to examine the individual and report back to the court.
- Keep in mind you have no patient physician privilege in an exam like this.
- Sometimes guardianship is not used for its proper purposes though.
- For example take a look at this appeal out of West Palm Beach’s Fourth District Court of Appeal.
Snyder et. Al. v. Guardianship of Swistock Sr.
- A man had five daughters and some valuable stock that he promised to four of them on his death.
- That was not soon enough for them though so they sued the man in Pennsylvania for the stock.
- They then went and tried to petition for guardianship in Florida over their father who they were also suing!
- They did not get appointed the guardianship though luckily the Florida court was able to see that guardianship was not appropriate.
- Unfortunately some time later the man suffered a stroke and as a result guardianship was necessary!
- So the court appointed the fifth daughter as the guardian and she transferred the stock to her own name as personal representative once he died, destroying any claim to a right of survivorship that the other daughters had.
- Needless to say this was all raised on appeal in Florida.
- The Florida court however while acknowledging that the sisters had a property right deprived of them, noted that they failed to preserve their objection and file for a timely appeal.
- As a result they lost.
- Do you know the timing in West Palm Beach to file an appeal?
Want to learn more?
Click here to read the case in its entirety.