#TEXAS COURT ENDS #LIFE SUPPORT FOR PREGNANT WOMAN – could #living wills and #healthcare powers of attorney help?
A Texas judge has ordered a hospital to take a pregnant woman who is brain-dead off life support. This marks the second time in two months that courts have intervened to make healthcare decisions for brain-dead persons. The other related story which made national news occurred last month when a brain-dead child was on life support in California.
#WHO IS MAKING YOUR HEALTH CARE DECISIONS ?…… when you can’t
Which causes one to ponder: who is making your healthcare decisions when you are unable to ? Do you have #living wills, #healthcare proxies, #advanced medical directives ?
Most states have some type of law which permits you to predetermine your health care and treatment if you are incompetent, incapable, or brain-dead. If you don’t have these documents, family members or healthcare providers may disagree on what to do, leading to #probate litigation or #guardianship litigation.
#WHY LITIGATION OVER HEALTH CARE POWERS ?
Why do these cases make the news?
One, they pit right to life voices against those who believe one should be able to self-determine, predetermine their hospitalization, health care, and their demise.
Q : Who do you think should determine when you can die and under what circumstances?
This can often end in litigation when one’s intent is not evident, such as when you do not have #healthcare proxies, #advanced health care directives, or #medical durable powers of attorney. Sometimes, family members may disagree with what the hospital or the healthcare providers want to do. Other times a local law may require a hospital or other treating facility to take a particular action that the family does not want.
#MEDICAL DIRECTIVES, #HEALTH CARE PROXIES, #MEDICAL POWERS OF ATTORNEY — if you are brain dead or in a #persistent vegetative state
Most states, including Florida, permit you to spell out, in writing, what your intent is regarding your healthcare and who can make those decisions for you– if you are #brain-dead, or, in a #persistent vegetative state.
These healthcare documents often go by many names: #advanced health care directive, #medical durable power of attorney, #healthcare proxy, #power of attorney for healthcare, #will, #advanced medical directive.
If you do not want to be kept alive if you are brain dead, you can come out and say that in your #healthcare documents and #estate planning documents. If you do not want to be a sustained on a respirator, say it in your #medical power of attorney. By the same token, if you do want to be kept alive if you are in an irrevocable coma, on a respirator, or if you are brain dead, you should spell that out too.
#WHO WILL YOU LET MAKE #HEALTH CARE DECISIONS FOR YOU ? — who will you give the power to?
Often times, #living wills reveal your intent about whether you want to be kept alive by artificial means if you are #brain-dead. While a #living will, and other healthcare documents will tell a court and your family members what your intent is, you should also actually give someone the power to make the decisions for you.
An #advanced health care directive, or #healthcare proxy, or power of attorney for healthcare decisions are documents which permit you to actually give power to someone who you choose with the express and exclusive authority to make very limited or very broad health care decisions for you if you are unable to.
Care needs to go into selecting successor agents in case the agent that you name is unable or unwilling to act. In addition, circumstances can change. Consider the case where someone is brain dead and in a persistent vegetative state and his or her #healthcare proxy names their spouse. But that #healthcare proxy was never updated and never reflected the fact that the couple have been separated for two years and living apart. You really want someone who was going to divorce you to make life-and-death decisions for you?
Q: Would you give someone the power to terminate your life if they were also the sole beneficiary of a $5 million life insurance ?
Like all #estate planning documents, you should review your #healthcare documents and #living will each year to keep them updated.
FOR REFERRAL SOURCES, LAWYERS AND LITIGATORS ONLY
We help you with Florida estate and trust administration and trials, and #probate appeals.
Our #Florida probate law firm
- does not prepare estate plans
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Our #West Palm Beach, Florida #probate litigation firm :
- hands your clients back to you at the conclusion of the #Florida matter—after all, they are YOUR clients
- we try cases & handle appeals
- our practice is restricted to #Florida probate disputes & contested guardianships
- we work with you on #Florida estate administration, #Florida probate
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- we receive approximately 95% of our clients from other lawyers
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Who are we? Our firm is comprised of
- serious Florida litigators, with an outstanding reputation in our legal community
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We have been involved in high profile, nine figure, multi-million-dollar #Florida estates, including Madoff matters, old # Palm Beach money and complex trusts and multi-party #Florida probates. We also handle “small” or “simple” matters. All we do is litigate and help you with #Florida estate and trust administration. #Tortious interference with an inheritance and allegations of #undue influence, and #will challenges and trust challenges are a unique subspecialty of the law. Does your client know which ones to file, when to do that, and why? Do you know the different ways to prove each case? How about quantifying or assessing damages? It would be our pleasure to work with you and to serve your clients. For a complete copy of this very recent legal opinion please email michelle@pankauskilawfirm.com.
John Pankauski, www.johnpankauski.com, is the author of The Trustee’s Book – An Individual’s Guide To Money, Misfits, Marriages, and Mismanagement, and the upcoming The $41 Trillion Inheritance War. He is an estate and trust litigator in West Palm Beach, Florida, www.pankauskilawfirm.com and has been featured on the CBS Evening News, in The Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch, NBC, ABC and Fox networks.