{"id":374,"date":"2010-09-19T11:12:16","date_gmt":"2010-09-19T18:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fiduciarydutiesblog.com\/?p=374"},"modified":"2010-09-19T11:12:16","modified_gmt":"2010-09-19T18:12:16","slug":"gift-to-step-daughter-upheld-by-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fresnolawyerblog.com\/?p=374","title":{"rendered":"Gift to Step-Daughter Upheld by Court"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s remarkable how persons come out of the woodwork after a relative\u2019s death, claiming that they should get a share of the decedent\u2019s estate.\u00a0 Especially when the decedent left money to someone not related by blood who helped care for the person in his or her declining years.\u00a0 In this case, the wicked step-daughter.<\/p>\n

The recent situation in Estate of Austin<\/strong> involved this all-too-familiar pattern.\u00a0 The court set the facts as follows.\u00a0 \u201cPrior to Donald Austin’s death, Donald\u2019s mother passed away and his brother, Wesley Austin became successor trustee of the mother\u2019s trust.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn April or May 2007, Wesley and his wife, Janice, learned Donald would receive funds from the mother\u2019s trust.\u00a0 Wesley and Janice went to see Donald at the nursing home and asked what he wanted to do with the funds.\u201d<\/p>\n

This did not sit well with Donald.\u00a0 \u201cOn their third visit in three weeks, Donald had decided he wanted Debra to have the money.\u00a0 [Debra was the daughter of Donald\u2019s ex-wife.]\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWesley and Janice called Debra and asked her to come to the nursing home. Wesley handed the first check to Donald, who signed it, handed it to Debra, and said, \u2018Here, this is yours.\u2019\u00a0 Wesley received the second check from the life insurance company; he took it to Donald, who signed it over to Debra and told Wesley to take it to her. Wesley delivered it to Debra personally. The remaining four checks were written by Donald to Debra. The six checks were dated between April 5 and July 10, 2007, and totaled approximately $185,000.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Notre<\/a><\/p>\n

The testimony at trial indicated that, at the time the checks were given to Debra, Donald was 72 years old and a resident of a nursing home.\u00a0 He had been placed in the nursing home because his health had declined and he was unable to care for himself after suffering a broken hip and undergoing triple bypass surgery.\u00a0 The parties did not dispute that he was a \u201cdependent adult\u201d within the meaning of California law.<\/p>\n

Donald\u2019s daughter, Dawn, was outraged after his father\u2019s death that she [Dawn] did not get the money.\u00a0 So she did what any reasonable person would do.\u00a0 She sued Debra.\u00a0 The court would have none of it.<\/p>\n

Dawn\u2019s theory was that Debra was a \u201ccare custodian\u201d under California law and therefore ineligible to take from Donald.\u00a0 Specifically, \u201cDawn contends Debra was a \u2018care custodian of a dependent adult. as that term is used in Probate Code section 21350, and is therefore a person disqualified from receiving a transfer of property from that dependent adult.\u201d<\/p>\n

The trial court found that Dawn did not meet her initial burden of proving Debra was a disqualified transferee under section 21350, subdivision (a). It concluded Dawn failed to prove Debra met the definition of a care custodian.\u00a0 This finding was affirmed on appeal.<\/p>\n

Explained the court, \u201cThe definition [of care custodian] is not limited to paid professional care givers; it includes a person who provides health services or social services to a dependent adult as a result of a preexisting personal friendship with the dependent adult.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Debra did not fit the definition.\u00a0 According to the court, \u201cDonald made the gifts to Debra while he was residing in a nursing home.\u00a0 There was no evidence Debra was providing any health or social services to him at that time<\/strong>. The evidence showed that Donald had been able to take care of himself, and Debra did not provide assistance to him, until he broke his hip in October 2006 and had triple bypass surgery three weeks later.\u201d<\/p>\n

Furthermore, \u201cThere was no evidence Debra was ever a paid live-in caregiver for Donald . . . Debra’s services were much more limited, consisting only of driving Donald to the doctor, preparing some of his meals, and unspecified helping out. \u00b6 Substantial evidence supports the trial court’s conclusion that Debra did not become Donald’s care custodian as a result of the limited services she performed for him while he was not in a nursing home<\/strong>.\u00a0 Dawn failed to carry her burden of proving Debra was a disqualified transferee.\u201d<\/p>\n

It seems like the court reached a fair and reasonable decision.\u00a0 Donald favored the person who was closer to him, and the court respected his wishes.<\/p>\n

Estate of Austin<\/strong> (Sept. 15, 2010) — Cal.Rptr.3d —-, 2010 WL 3565739<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s remarkable how persons come out of the woodwork after a relative\u2019s death, claiming that they should get a share of the decedent\u2019s estate.\u00a0 Especially when the decedent left money to someone not related by blood who helped care for the person in his or her declining years.\u00a0 In this case, the wicked step-daughter. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-case-law","category-trusts-and-estates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fresnolawyerblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fresnolawyerblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fresnolawyerblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fresnolawyerblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fresnolawyerblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fresnolawyerblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fresnolawyerblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fresnolawyerblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fresnolawyerblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}