Imagine you are an elderly widow who decides to ask a trusted advisor to serve as a court-appointed conservator, to help with your medical and financial decisions. Then a stranger, a neighbor you met just once for a few minutes while taking a walk, steps in and asks the court to appoint him to manage your affairs.
As uncomplicated as that choice would seem to be, it took a lengthy series hearings before the Los Angeles Superior Court and the California Court of Appeal to determine the outcome (Hankin v Anne S.)
On July 28, 2022, attorneys G. Scott Sobel and Marc B. Hankin asked the probate court to appoint Sobel as probate conservator of the person and estate of Anne S. (Her full name was not included in court documents to protect her privacy.)
The petition alleged Anne was being “unduly influenced” and possibly mistreated by her housemate, Nadine Brownen, and that Brownen had “attempted to orchestrate a sale of Anne’s home.”
The petition was supported by Anne’s stepson, friends, doctors, her health care agent, and others.
Sobel said he had known Anne and her late husband for more than 30 years and was “a constant advisor” to her.
Hankins said he was a “neighbor” of Anne who lived one street away and had met her once “while [he] and his wife were taking a walk,” and had “chatted [with her] for several minutes.”
Anne objected to being placed under a conservatorship.
A few months later, Anne’s stepson, Jonathan S., filed a separate petition asking the court to appoint him as Anne’s conservator.
In January of 2023, Anne and Jonathan, with the support of Anne’s health care agent, signed a Settlement Agreement to resolve issues related to managing her affairs. Subject to approval by the court, it called for Brownen to move out of Anne’s home in exchange for a payment of $10,000, while Anne agreed to have her finances, personal affairs, and medical care managed by professionals.
On February 14, 2023, Sobel, acting independently of Hankin, asked the court to dismiss Sobel from the petition he and Hankin had filed.
Hankin then submitted a petition of his own requesting that he alone be appointed Anne’s conservator. He also asked the judge to have a doctor evaluate Anne’s capacity to manage her affairs, even though the court had previously denied a similar request.
On March 13, 2023, Jonathan asked the trial court to approve the Settlement Agreement signed by Anne. The following day, Hankin filed an opposing motion, saying Anne lacked the capacity to sign the Settlement Agreement or other legal documents.
The court then appointed Jonathan as temporary conservator with limited powers to approve the Settlement Agreement, which he did on March 24, 2023.
Two weeks later, Anne asked the court to impose sanctions against Hankin, based on a California statute which allows sanctions against attorneys who file pleadings for improper or frivolous purposes or without factual support.
She also asked the court to order Hankin to reimburse Anne’s $5,577 in legal fees she had incurred because of his conservatorship petition. Jonathan filed a similar request for reimbursement of $6,720 in legal fees.
In May of 2023, Anne and Jonathan, supported by her health care agent, asked the trial court to dismiss Hankin’s petition for lack of standing. The court granted her motion in July of that year. It also ruled that Hankin’s petition was “legally frivolous,” and awarded her $5,577 in sanctions. It did not award sanctions to Jonathan.
Hankin then appealed.
The appellate court rejected all of Hankin’s arguments. It said he lacked standing to pursue his case.
They noted that every legal action presented to a court must be “prosecuted in the name of the real party in interest,” who generally is “the person possessing the right sued upon.” In the case of a conservatorship, the appellate justices said, a proposed conservatee, spouse, domestic partner, relative, friend, or government agency would likely have standing to file a petition.
Hankin, they noted, claimed he had standing as an “interested person” or “friend.” But they said a friend is a person with whom one has “a close and informal relationship of mutual trust and intimacy,” while the record showed that Hankin’s association with Anne was limited to being a neighbor who met her once when he and his wife were taking a walk and “chatted for several minutes.”
They said there is no basis in law for a person with “such a fleeting and tenuous connection” to petition for conservatorship. As Anne pointed out, the justices said, a ruling in favor of Hankin “risks weaponization” of the conservatorship process “by a nosey stranger, potentially subjecting elders to debilitating, costly legal battles.”
The court held that because Hankin lacked standing and his claims lacked merit, the sanctions imposed by the trial court were warranted. They affirmed the lower court’s orders and awarded Anne her costs on appeal.
By Jessica Stemple