A recent California appellate case, Stewart v. Superior Court (2017) 16 Cal.App.5th 87, validates the primacy of medical powers of attorney and (as they are more currently known) advance health care directives. Medical providers who disregard the instructions of duly-appointed health care agents by providing unauthorized treatment may be liable in California for elder abuse in addition to medical malpractice.
We focus our blog on the financial aspects of California trust and estate disputes. But, as we increasingly become involved in “parent custody” fights and other conflicts over the care of elder and dependent adults, it is important to understand the authority vested in an agent under a health directive. Continue Reading
No contest clauses are an ever-evolving area of the probate law in California. The Court of Appeal further refined the rules governing no contest clauses in a decision issued last week, 
California’s anti-SLAPP statute has generated another published case for trust and estate lawyers to ponder. Last week, in 
Although much wealth passes today through trusts and beneficiary designations, we occasionally handle California probate disputes that turn on the validity of wills, sometimes involving high value estates.
I’m a sibling lawyer. My career started early, as a middle child, and now continues as a Sacramento-based trust and estate litigation attorney. Most of my clients are grappling with sisters or brothers over the care and finances of aging or deceased parents. In 
One of the most dramatic areas of California trust and estate litigation is no contest clauses. No contest clauses bring a made-for-tv excitement to the practice of trust and estate law because of the risk of disinheritance. Yet such clauses are widely misunderstood, even among attorneys. 
California trust and estate disputes may be avoided or resolved with the appointment of a private professional fiduciary to act in an oversight role with respect to an elder’s care and/or finances. In a 
Mental incapacity and undue influence are the most common theories used to try to invalidate wills, trusts and beneficiary designations in California and elsewhere. Occasionally, the subject in a trust and estate dispute has a thorough cognitive evaluation performed contemporaneously with his or her estate planning change. But, more often than not, the medical record is fragmentary.
California trust litigation often stems from disagreements and hostility among family member co-trustees. Rather than picking one of their kids to serve as sole successor trustee when they die or become incapacitated, Mom and Dad often appoint two or more of their children to act together as successor co-trustees.
California’s Elder Abuse and Dependent Adult Civil Protection Act is elastic enough to encompass claims arising from sharp insurance sales practices, even when elders do not pay anything directly to the agents. So concluded the First District Court of Appeal earlier this month in Mahan v. Charles W. Chan Insurance Agency, Inc. (2017) 12 Cal.App.5th 442.