HomeMy WebLinkAbout10-25-06
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1 THE COURT: Good morning.
2 MR. RUPP: Good morning, Your Honor. Your
3 Honor, this is the day and time set for the guardianship
4 petition for Althea J. Faley. Some preliminary matters,
5 first, we have the Sheriff's return. The sheriff served
6 Althea on August 17 in accordance with the rules. I will
7 pass that up.
8 THE COURT: We will make it part of the
9 record.
10 MR. RUPP: Yes, Your Honor. Secondly, Your
11 Honor, the other two co-petitioners, Thomas Faley and Joseph
12 Faley, have elected to withdraw as co-petitioners. And I
13 have that to pass up to Your Honor too. They have signed
14 withdrawals as co-petitioners. I will pass that up to Your
15 Honor. These are the originals.
16 THE COURT: Who is then proposed to be
17 appointed?
18 MR. RUPP: I am, Your Honor, pursuant to
19 Althea's power of attorney. I am currently her power of
20 attorney. And in that power of attorney it says that should
21 it become necessary, she appoints myself as also her
22 guardian then. So I am the sole surviving petitioner then,
23 for the Court's benefit. And, Your Honor, this is a
24 standard petition for an appointment of a guardian of a
25 person and estate in accordance with 20 Pa.C.S.A. 5511.
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1 We are alleging that Althea is subject to
2 dementia and Alzheimer's and needs a guardian appointed so
3 that no one can take advantage of her by changing her
4 paperwork, replacing or revoking her power of attorney, and
5 protecting her all around. And the will, which is attached
6 to the petition, Your Honor, leaves basically everything to
7 the two sons who are present, Thomas Faley and Joseph Faley,
8 who are present in the courtroom and who were the
9 co-petitioners. And we have a doctor to call who evaluated
10 Althea. He is a doctor, he is a psychologist, and he is
11 attached to Health South at the Renova building.
12 THE COURT: And he is available now?
13 MR. RUPP: He is available now.
14 MR. JOSEPH FALEY: Your Honor, I am not sure
15 when we can talk. Tom and myself, we are unfamiliar with
16 the proper procedures, so I don't want to be out of line.
17 But I want to make it known that my mother and her two sons
18 are contesting this petition. And I just want to make
19 sure -- I wasn't sure if Mr. Rupp talks first --
20 THE COURT: I didn't understand that at all.
21 MR. JOSEPH FALEY: We requested to withdraw
22 in the middle of August. Mr. Rupp did not send us the
23 paperwork until this past Friday. And that's why you
24 haven't received it. I called your main office, because I
25 wanted you to be aware that there was a contested case.
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1 THE COURT: Well do you desire to retain
2 counsel in this case?
3 MR. JOSEPH FALEY: I think my mother can
4 address that. We do have a -- and I refer to it as a
5 testimony, which highlights the concerns that my mother and
6 we have, and what we believe our mother now wants. I am
7 hoping this can be put, you know, into the record. We were
8 planning to paraphrase to a certain extent what we have in
9 that testimonial document. But the bottom line also is if
10 the Court thought it was necessary, again, I think it is
11 important for my mother to talk, and maybe not Tom and
12 myself, but she would, if there is some type of preliminary
13 decision that a guardianship is needed, number one, and,
14 number two, definitely for Mr. Rupp, she would like -- if I
15 read the court statement, she does have that right to hire
16 another attorney.
17 THE COURT: Well, I don't have pending before
18 me any emergency petition today. So this is not being
19 approached as any emergency at all.
20 MR. RUPP: No, Your Honor.
21 THE COURT: And so I repeat my other
22 question, is it your desire to retain counsel? I will
23 continue this hearing today and give you the opportunity to
24 consult with an attorney, and I will reschedule it, because
25 I certainly would also want to have allowed far more time --
4
1 perhaps I should have been aware of the procedural posture,
2 but I was not. I just made the assumption that you were
3 acceding to his appointment as guardian.
4 Mr. Rupp, I am inclined to continue this
5 matter --
6 MR. RUPP: I understand, Your Honor.
7 THE COURT: And give them the opportunity to
8 have counsel. We will reschedule it at a time when I can
9 probably allot two or three hours to this, because we are
10 going to need to take testimony and statements and so forth.
11 Where does she stand now though in terms of her --
12 MR. THOMAS FALEY: Your Honor, she is staying
13 in Bethany Village. As we read the summons, and we are
14 novices, the both of us, in this area, so we are trusting
15 dummies, which maybe got us into in a situation, and we will
16 explain why. He brought in an affidavit.
17 But she lives in Bethany Village. She has
18 expressed to us, if we read the summons right, if she was
19 poor, the Court would appoint her an attorney. But she has
20 assets, about 1.1 million dollars. She has expressed to us
21 that she would like to get legal counsel. We are not going
22 to -- from listening to her, my brother and I are not going
23 to contest the dementia. In other words, my mother has
24 failed. But she has some rudimentary actions that she has
25 been running on.
5
1 She had the opinion, and has it for years,
2 that Mr. Rupp would carry the ball initially as a power of
3 attorney and then pass onto us. We signed that petition to
4 come before your court, sir, under the understanding that
5 she earlier had said she wanted a new attorney. We weren't
6 sure why. We couldn't pin it down. We didn't know whether
7 it was the influence of other family members or what have
8 you.
9 Mr. Rupp advised us at that time that the
10 best course of action would go to guardianship and cut that
11 off. The problem being, sir -- that was 19 July, once we
12 signed those petitions on both our cases, we have attempted
13 numerous telephonic his office line, his personal line,
14 to communicate with him. In essence we were faced with a
15 Berlin wall. We got little to no feedback. And it is in my
16 brother's statement he wanted to present to the Court. It
17 put us in a dilemma. So we withdrew, and we were hoping and
18 praying that you would do perhaps what you just indicated,
19 go for a continuance. That gives her, if we read it right,
20 because she is not poor, she can afford advice of counsel.
21 It gives her and us a chance to go out and get an attorney
22 and come in at a future date and present our situation that,
23 yes, Mr. Rupp has the power of attorney today. But within
24 that document it was always her intent it would in the
25 future, it would pass on.
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1 We also thought in a 19 July meeting that he
2 indicated to us he was willing to pass it on to us in six to
3 twelve months. Once we signed the document, he says he has
4 different memories of that meeting. So we are in a dilemma.
S That's why we are before you. My brother brought a detailed
6 statement.
7 THE COURT: Why don't we just do as I
8 indicated to do, because I really don't want to get into the
9 merits of whether or not Mr. Rupp was responsive to
10 telephone calls or what differences have arisen between you
11 and Mr. Rupp. At this point I really don't need to litigate
12 that. That's not the issue. And perhaps if you obtain an
13 attorney, they can talk to Mr. Rupp, and this could
14 conceivably be amicably resolved at the end of the day.
15 MR. RUPP: Very good.
16 THE COURT: And if you want to leave with our
17 stenographer your addresses and telephone numbers where we
18 can get in touch with you.
19 We will enter this order. And Now, this
20 date, this matter having been called for hearing, it
21 appearing that the alleged incapacitated person desires the
22 opportunity to retain her own counsel, hearing herein is
23 continued, and the matter to be rescheduled by the court
24 promptly.
25 (End of proceedings)
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CERTIFICATION
I hereby certify that the proceedings are
contained fully and accurately in the notes taken by me on
the above cause and that this is a correct transcript of
same.
~~
Barbara E. Graham
Official Stenographer
The foregoing record of the proceedings on
the hearing of the within matter is hereby approved and
directed to be filed.
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