Episode 10 – Stand, Fight, Win! LIVE: Real Lawyer, Real Answers – Financial Elder Abuse

[Music] According to the National Council on Aging approximately one in ten Americans age 60 and up have experienced some form of elder abuse it is estimated that as many as 5 million elders are abused each year however only one in 14 cases are reported to authorities welcome to the stand fight wind live stream real lawyers real answers I'm Keith Davidson I'm Stewart Albertson and we are a couple of real lawyers this is being broadcast live on YouTube and Facebook you can see the live broadcasts on either of those platforms you can also go to Facebook and YouTube to see a recorded version of this live stream after we're done recording you can also find an audio only version at pod bean and today's stamp I win live stream we are talking about financial elder abuse a huge epidemic something that we face constantly in our cases and of our cases that we currently have pending Stuart what percentage of cases do you think have financial elder abuse claims associated with them well of the trust contest cases or will contest cases we have I would say 90% plus of them easy right so almost 90% of our cases have some financial elder abuse aspect to it one way or another that's correct so let's kick things off by going to our breaking news segment and we'll talk about a recent appellate case that came out dealing with financial elder abuse and this is kind of an interesting case just because it deals with the type of help that you can go after if you are an elder or if you have an elder who's being abused and that's an injunction so part of our financial elder abuse laws you can actually go and get an injunction to stop people from abusing elders what's the name of the case Keith oh yeah in this case is Jude Darren versus Sandra Miller and this is out of Lake County so that's out of the appellate district Division two first Appellate District Division two now has to do with Jude Darren who is aged 81 and heard neighbors were really harassing her apparently they were intimidating her by taunting her threatening her twice removing a boundary fence between the properties trespassing onto her property where they destroyed a hedge and defaced and damaged a barrier fence they threatened they threatened her and her spouse and her grandson and they let their dogs Menace her unchecked and the boyfriend ordered the dogs to kill her apparently as what they told her so not not good neighbors and so she went in hired a lawyer and tried to get an injunction under the elder abuse laws and the court denied it because the court said well there's no connection between the neighbors and the elder in other words there wasn't any type of obligation that the neighbors had to care for the elders and so it went up on appeal in the appellate court reversed and the appellate court said well there doesn't have to be a connection so anytime under the this is welfare and institutions code section 15 6/10 point O 7 and the definition of mental suffering is defined as fear agitation confusion severe depression or other forms of serious emotional distress that is brought about by forms of intimidating behavior threats harassment and it's it's a very wide net and it can be brought against anybody so if anybody's doing those things to an elder there doesn't have to be any type of connection between the elder and the abuser to go in and get an injunction and really there's another part of the code section that I think the trial court misinterpreted and that is if you have an obligation to care for an elder and you neglect them that's also elder abuse but here it's not a matter of neglect it wasn't that somebody had an obligation to do something and neglected that duty it's that they were actively harassing an elder person and so the appellate court said no that's that is elder abuse under the financial elder abuse laws or under all the elder abuse laws and so they can be enjoined from doing that so that was the case of Darren versus Miller you know it's interesting I've never thought about it the financial elder abuse statute it a wide-open road when it was first passed by the legislature and it seemed like anybody could file a case on behalf of an elder and now the courts have really restricted who can file on behalf of an elder but now we have an elder who's actually using an act to protect themselves and what what a great idea a financial elder abuse act that protects somebody from this type of behavior and you've got you know as people get older I know your mom's older my mom's older can you imagine that the next-door neighbor told your mom that they were sick of their dogs on them to kill them I mean I want to go and rip these people's heads off roars and so now there's this civil remedy and it's a great civil remedy and people can go in and and I'm so glad that you found this case Keith because I think we could start using it going forward to some of our cases yeah it's interesting because usually by the time we get on the scene the elder typically the others already passed away so there's you can't go in and get an injunction and the damage is done right but even if the elder hasn't passed away how often do you see people using injunctions under the Elder Abuse Act and not that often I don't see it that often well and if we had represented this individual and they'd come in and I hadn't had a chance to see this case and they said hey can I stop this behavior my neighbor's I would say yes we'll bring a restraining order and and we'll ask a court to issue a temporary restraining order and then we'll have an injunction hearing down the road which may still be an option that you can do but now you have this to back it up as well for anyone that is 65 years or older and that's fantastic yeah it's really nice that the appellate court was able to clarify this particular point and we don't do a whole lot of injunction work because like I said normally well there's two situations either the elders already deceased and we're enforcing the elder laws but post death or the elder doesn't have capacity to be able to do something like that they're under somebody else's thumb right or any coercion so what are you gonna do there right so what would you do there by the way so you know brother comes in and and says my sister has is abusing my mom but it's kind of under mom's sister's thumb well and these are the hard cases effect we did a consult earlier today before our live cast here and you have where mom is still living and has the of the bad child it's very difficult because if you bring a petition for conservatorship against it's essentially against your mom because you're asking the court to declare that she can't take care of either herself her person or her a state or both and so you're essentially saying mom doesn't have these capabilities what bad sister will do is say can you believe that that your child has filed this against you they're trying to take away your capacity mom and then mom may go ahead and change the trust or the will and disinherit the person that's actually trying to help them and so it's a very difficult place to be we typically advise that people just simply do the best they can with their parents while they're still living under those difficult circumstances and then after they've passed there are some things we can do to remedy some of the damage that's been done right and that actually gets into some of the questions that we'll be answering today we've received some questions let's go on to our next segment asked and answered we have received some questions from people we received a lot of questions from people actually that touch on elder abuse because it is prevalent in so many of our cases like we said 90% of our cases have some form of financial aid or abuse claim in them whether we're filing in probate court or civil court we're filing these claims constantly so while we start with our first question Kayla if you can start us off what are some of the ways that elders are financially manipulated both in life and after death so this is very interesting I think question to answer because if you look at financial abuse it really comes down to a taking that's what it does what the whole if I can boil it down to one word to be a taking a bad taking yeah bad taking you're taking from an elder that you shouldn't be it's like stealing I guess like asking them for loans that you don't intend to pay back asking them to buy their car for $1,000 when the cars worth $50,000 yeah and I think that's the interesting difference is that you could have a taking but I just open up your wallet and take money and that's just theft right right and that's a taking but there's also a more devious way of taking that we deal with on a regular basis and that is dressing up the taking as legitimate correct and so how do you dress up a taking as a legitimate thing well you you start putting in bogus documents and you start doing these powers of attorney and you start doing these bogus sales like you just mentioned you know selling a car I had a case years ago where an elder supposedly sold real estate to a corporation and they did it for a sweetheart deal I mean it sold for ten percent of what its actual value right but once we you draw back the curtain and you start the lawsuit the other side says well this is what the elder wanted and they are the one who set the purchase price and this is you know we're just doing what they want it was a gift it was a gift it was a gift yeah I paid a little bit but it was a gift so let's talk about some of the ways in which people are able to legitimate make the earth taking legitimate okay I would think the one way we see all the time is they'll get a bad / bad actor we'll get mom and dad to change their long-standing estate plan so they'll go out and hire usually not the family attorney that's been doing the estate plan for the last 20 years they'll go hire some lawyer that has a very dark darkly lit office and that lawyer for a grand fee of $1500 will transfer millions of dollars in value by way of a trust amendment or a codicil to a will or make this person the power of attorney and give them the right to change the trust or the will for a very small amount of money and it looks legitimate because you have a document you have a lawyer that's involved that lawyers going to show up to the deposition and testify this is what mom wanted and so that's the one we see time and again and what's the problem like once you have a document and the parents signed it it's presumed to be valid I mean it's presumed valid that's crazy I mean think about that so that's it's a presumption that you now have to fight against right and and to make it even worse if it's usually a let's get it step aside from the caregivers or the non family members that are the bad actors let's go to family members that are the bad actors like one of your siblings is doing this what they'll do to make this even worse is let's say there's a five million dollar estate they'll give you and your brother a million dollars each and give themselves the remaining three million and then they'll back it up with a really strongly worded no contest clause right and so now you are under the current fraudulent document you're entitled to a million each are you willing to risk that by filing a trust contest that's gonna trigger the no contest clause or you can be out everything and you could be out everything under the right set of facts and circumstances so you can really be set it up to create an incentive to not want to fight that well and what's interesting about that Keith is that you know when I went to law school I didn't I didn't understand and some people would even say to this day I don't understand how to be a lawyer but I didn't understand how to apply facts to law and law to facts and I think in my third year the light bulb went off and it seems so simple to me and I wondered why couldn't I get that in my first in my second year we come across people that are non lawyers have never gone to law school and they have this whole game figured out if they were to put their mental use to actually doing something positive in this world they would be very successful yes yes but they're very good at being devious and so now you've got these documents in place and part of the problem too when they go to the new lawyer is it's not necessarily the lawyer doing something nefarious the lawyer could think that they're doing something perfectly fine because let's say they go the new lawyer and the new lawyer says well I'm gonna have to talk to mom by herself and so step out of the room you know a bad actor so I can talk to mom and mom's gonna say yep that's what I want because she's been preconditioned it's already in her head right because of the undue influence that's right so let's talk a little bit about what is undue influence because in our line of work and our financial elder abuse claims the way that people are stealing assets from elders is usually they're trying to make it look legitimate by putting together documents and they often are taking these assets after death because that's the way to make it look legitimate right because if I didn't get it during life but I get it as part of the trust or will after death oh I didn't steal it that's what mom or dad wanted and the deceit is no longer here to tell us what they truly know is yes so so by and large that's being done through the use of undue influence yes so let's talk a little bit about what is undue influence alright so how would you define undoing I'm doing if I wanted to unduly influence you I would take what I wanted and I would put it into your head and you don't want that necessarily and I would get you to do what I want you to do right and so I would do it with excessive persuasion and that's kind of the idea behind it is is that I'm making you but for me exercising undue influence over you exercising what I want you to do you would not be doing these things right that is undue influence yeah I think that's a great way to put it it's literally replacing the decedent's intent with your own and so there's four elements to that legally speaking so you have to have an elder who is susceptible to undue influence you have to show that there was actions and tactics that people would use to perpetuate this undoing the bad actor what did they do to do these things that's right yeah and then you have to show a parent authority so the bad actor has has to have some sort of connection with the ill child a child remember an agent under a power of attorney a trustee right one of those things caregiver and then you have to show that the result was inequitable who's unfair that's right which that's really usually the easiest park is typically you'll have a long-standing estate plan where the kids take equally and then at the very end it goes somebody else right and so obviously there's something wrong there so what do you think about so we know that primarily elders are manipulated by people taking their assets you try to these a lot of bad actors try to dress it up by making it look legitimate and so what are we to do about these things so how are you going to prevent somebody from taking advantage of your parent either during life or after death so let's start with during a life which you touched on this a little bit earlier but well it's a petition for conservatorship but it's got a whole host of problems to run with it so you can go in you can you can file for conservatorship try to get a conservatory appointed and you have to do that even if they have a trust so that's that's the crazy thing is that even though they have a trust that the bad actors the trustee because they have got a new amendment that appointed them trustee you're still going to go to court on a conservatorship so what's the problem what's the number one problem with conservatives well if mom and dad have has any capacity whatsoever they're not gonna be happy about the fact that you're asking a court to take away their ability to make decisions for themselves nobody in this world from even a three-year-old kid that wants to learn how to tie their shoe right wants to take orders from anyone else and they want to do it themselves and if you think about it most of these elders have lost their right to drive they've lost other rights along the way as they've gotten older and now this is kind of like wow you're gonna take everything away from me and they don't care whose doing that they're gonna be upset about the fact that somebody is trying to take their rights away whereas the person that's trying to do this is actually trying to help them to protect them against the bad acting person but that bad acting person who's so good at this they're gonna turn that they're gonna use this event to turn mom or dad against the person who's trying to help them kind of place into their hands doesn't it it plays into their hands so nicely and then mom and dad are offended because the bad actors per se I can't believe that Keith is trying to do this to you I mean you clearly know what you're doing and aren't you giving them something near a state plan Wow I wouldn't give them anything if that were me and that's undue influence right right and actually plays in their hands is like this is what I've been talking about I told you that they're only after your money and here they are suing to try and get conservatorship over you it's exactly what I told you they were doing right mom you should have all the money for yourself we should spend it all on you and I can't believe they're trying to get your money then this is where the greedy air issue comes up the person that's actually trying to help is made out to look like a greedy heir and by the way these actions will be revisited even in post death because if a trust contest is filed you can bet the bad actors gonna inform their lawyer of all the things you the good actor did to try to help mom and point it out as you were being a greedy heir trying to keep the money from being spent and so forth okay so what how about after death because after death now there becomes a difference in terms of what can be done right well a lot can be done why don't you attack this one a lot can be done after after death and of course we tell clients we can do a whole lot more for you after someone dies we never hope they die but once they die what are the things we can do for them well differences vested rights so once a parent dies now the child has rights to these trusts and will issues directly it's their rights it's no longer the parents rights so while the parents are alive or whoever we're talking about the elder while the elder is alive it's the elders rights and so the elder has to enforce them while the elder can't enforce them because their lack capacity are there under the bad actors thumb or whatever the problem is that's why you have to do conservatorship but after the elders deceased now their heirs their children whoever it is that that should be rightfully receiving their inheritance they take over those rights right and so the interesting thing is that the right to sue for elder abuse doesn't go away just because the elder dies and that's fortunate I mean that's a good thing well what's the statute of limitations on elder abuse three years it's four years four years yeah so you have a huge window within the typical statute just for reference is around two years right personal injuries two years yeah and and so like most fraud claims are three years three years that's right four years yeah so four years is a long statute of limitation and the thing the great thing about it is is that just because the elder passes doesn't mean that the other abuse didn't happen and it doesn't mean that there's not a way to correct what happened I mean you can't bring the elder back unfortunately so if there was physical abuse that's something that you really can't do much about but the financial abuse you can you can make those things right in the eyes of the law at least but you have to be a success or an interest to do it and that's the that's the tricky part so if you're completely disinherited can you bring a financial elder abuse action against because of actions that some bad actor took against your mother depends on what court I'm in yeah yeah the answer could be no and we've we've seen it go both ways right there's some courts who will say no you have to you have to receive some something of value some money right and if you're completely disinherited which is circular reasoning because if you win the trust contest then you would receive value and so you know they cause us problems here and so you know I guess the one way all view this is in the next time we run across this with a court is well let's stay the financial elder abuse don't make a decision there let us have the trust contest and then we'll figure out if we are in that position but the court may say no no you need to be in that position today and if you're not in that position today then you can't bring the financial elder abuse an animal you have to bring it trust contest so you have to show that you're trying to become your the rightful heir under the trust and once you have the trust contest you can also bring financial elder abuse cause of action which is a separate completely separate cause of action whole different code right well for an institutions code versus probic by the way fun fact trust contest is gonna be a bench trial right but a count for financial elder abuse even if made in the probate court doesn't matter where you make it that has a right to a jury trial because it's a whole different code and it's and it is interesting because if you can't show that you're trying to become an heir of the trust most courts will allow your financial other abuse claim to stand but you do have to have some claim of right some successor and interest rights to bring in financial abuse claim but once you have that now you can stand up you're essentially standing up into the shoes of the elder and you can make things right so whatever was taken during life whatever was taken well not all of life but whatever was taken near the end of life and whatever was done what the estate plan can now be corrected and that makes it just that much easier it's still though in our experience we're typically doing undue influence claims that's just the means by which we prove financial elder abuse but let's talk a little bit about what a taking is specifically because we've had some cases where people the opposing attorneys will file a demur against us trying to end the lawsuit and they'll say well there wasn't a taking because my client the bad actor not my client their client the bad actor we don't represent bad people we only represent get people anyway the other side will say it wasn't a taking because there was nothing taken during the elders lifetime I mean yes there they're getting everything after death but there was no taking because I didn't take anything while the other was alive therefore I'm in a what's your response to well at a key there's actually a definition for a taking and if you look at the definition in the statute and in the jury instructions taking by a trust or a will is considered to be a taking and so that is a taking and it happened even though the effect doesn't take place until after death the taking did take place during the decedent's lifetime and it has to be that way because if you didn't have the fact that a taking can also be by trust a will that be a huge hole to the statute right to get around elder abuse all you have to do just have to dress it up yeah put put lipstick on a pig and you're good Hey something that's interesting is when you talk about a taking the statute also talks about assisting in a taking oh yeah and we're waiting for the right case to come along and so bad lawyers out there bad drafting lawyer top there beware if we find that a lawyer knows that these bad behaviors are taking place that bad actors doing bad things and assist that bad actor in and going ahead and making an amendment or a new trust or a restatement or whatever you want to call it and we find evidence strong evidence we wouldn't do this on weak evidence there would have to be some I mean a really strong prima facie case that this lawyer was involved in assisting in this wrongful act we want to file that lawsuit against that lawyer and that's true that's actually a really good point cuz that's true of all financial reviews whether it's the drafting lawyer or somebody else it's not just the taking that is liable but you can also be assisting in the taking and be liable that's right which is really interesting because it could be the lawyer could be a CPA could be somebody that's not a professional at all but they're somehow helping write a scheme right to take elders so that's to take from elders so that's really important let's talk just a little bit about the red flags okay because I think a lot of times when we're talking to people so if you're not a devious person and you're not a crook sometimes you might think that the things that you're seeing that look suspicious you second-guess yourself am I really seeing these things is it really as bad as I think it is or will talk to somebody and will say well these you know they'll tell us certain things are happening and we'll say well what about these other things and they haven't even thought of them because course we've seen the worst of the worst we've seen how people do these things but if you haven't encountered this before you may be surprised at just how devious and good people can be at unduly influencing an elder so what are some of the red flags that come to your mind and I'll say a few of mine well III digress just briefly to say that I once took the deposition of a drafting attorney and he was a really good-looking guy I mean super good-looking chiseled chin he was an attorney made for TV and he was well-spoken and refined and I remember at the beginning of his deposition I asked him when you made this amendment for this person that transferred millions of dollars from a state plan that had previously given everything equally to all their kids and now it's all going to one person did you see any red flags and that's the actual words I used and he said no not one and so when we finally three or four hours later got to the 12th red flag and he 12 confirmed me all 12 were red flags and so what are some of those red flags well for the bad actor in this case there were so many phone calls to this drafting attorneys office from the bad actor that the staff the secretary I don't mean to minimize secretaries but she's sure she was not a lawyer she was so concerned that she noted it in the file that there were so many phone calls it seemed weird and they were demanding you know demanding phone calls that that provisions of the amendment had to be changed and updated and what's interesting is and you know you hate to I think there's mostly good lawyers out there at least I want to believe that but this guy doesn't remember any of that right he doesn't have any recollection that there were multiple phone calls and that his assistant told him hey I'm worried about all of this but she was so worried about it that she wrote this down in the file of course that was one of the red flags that we talked about at the deposition that's very rare that at a secretary would note note that that's very helpful for the elder and for our case in that situation right so one of them is the bad actor is going to be aggressive about making changes right and the code actually cites that is one of the actions and tactics is either making changes in secret making changes quickly to documents or making them an in a poor at times right which would be in the hospital right that's a huge red flag if not only in the hospital but when you have a tube down your throat and you can't talk and your Naaman emphasize but what are your under yeah no yeah your animators but you're under severe pain Medicaid are you really not doctor yeah you can't you can't talk this is a case we recently had yeah and and somebody comes in and helps you sign a trust okay that's that's a red flag yeah yeah if somebody's holding your hand while you're signing a document that leaves everything to them yeah the person holding the hand yeah it's almost like here's your sign you know that is that's a red flag okay that's you know so there's the other one in my head with that same lawyer in that same case was he was meeting with his client his client that he said was fully capacitated in his office and he'd asked the bad actor to leave his office because that's always the story you get oh no I asked them to leave so that mean now whatever the elder tells me I know is gonna be fine alright and he said that he asked a lady a question and she answered it said she wanted to leave everything to the bad acting child but later on in his own notes she unprovoked says to him oh I was lying to you earlier I really don't want to give everything notes but he didn't remember that and so he had a lot of fun with him that that's a red flag it's a huge red flag you're not your clients lying to you right and why are they lying to you and they're confused about it because why would they lie to you and then five minutes later say oh you know I lied to you five because they were just beat up in the car right over to the lawyer's office saying you better be saying this when you go in to talk to the lawyer but is that a red flag yeah so what you dreadful when the lawyer says no red flags we're now up to three red flags well you know it could be is colorblind maybe to him those are green flag I don't know so that's a problem the other problem that we see that's a huge red flag is when you have somebody isolating the elder trying to control who has access to them when they have access to them being on the phone at the same time as somebody else calling in any ten anything where somebody just won't leave the elder alone that's a huge red flag yes that there's some manipulation going on right and then of course controlling the finances is a huge problem and I've seen this and I know you have to where it could be the neighbor all of a sudden is coming in and it starts off being helpful but then they're writing checks to Cash yeah well first they help with the but let me just help you pay your bills right because there's a stack of bills and they aren't be now let me help myself to some of this myself let me pay myself and my bills so it could be a neighbor could be a caregiver could be a friend could be a family member could be one of the children but by the way you have more by the way I want I want to be honest here I want to be honest so look we're all human we're laughing at these people right but it's easy to get yourself trapped into one of these things isn't it yeah I think so I think opportunity there's a pool of money nobody's looking it's almost like the monkey that got his hand caught in the cookie jar right it's like nobody's looking what is it hurt I mean I and then you start justifying in your mind I've been helping them do a lot of work I do a lot of work for them so you can see how it just regular old nice people even get caught up in this idea that I'm gonna pay myself some money but you need to be careful because that's financial elder abuse yeah and it turns into that really quickly and so I think when you see somebody who's controlling the finances and they're all of a sudden controlling the checkbook they're calling up the CPA you know the elders longtime CPA giving instructions they're calling the lawyer being demanding saying we need to do this that and the other thing they're just kind of generally taking over that's a huge red flag and so that's a big problem right and so part of this is is okay you're seeing these red flags we've already said that trying to take action while the elder is still alive is not easy that doesn't mean that there isn't things you could do while they're alive you can it's just they're not easy right and they can be expensive the other part of it though I think is paying attention and so just paying attention to these red flags and not trying to second-guess I mean if your gut reaction is is that something's not quite right here especially with a parent you know your parent you've been around your parent all your life most of us and if something doesn't seem right chances are it's probably not well I would say a red flag that many people don't see is if there's three siblings and two very successful ones that are out being an architect and a doctor for instance and they're they're doing well in life and they have a sibling that moved back in home with mom and dad chances are there's gonna be a change to the estate plan right and it's because if you think about it the kid that moves in back home where do they have to go the only thing that the only place they can live after mom and dad are going on that same house is that same house right and so you're gonna see that happen and then what if that house is expensive because in some areas people bought years and years ago and now they're in a very well developed area that happens a lot in the Bay Area you bought a house in Palo Alto in the 60s and now it's worth bucco bucks right and it's the biggest asset of the estate right so you're not gonna be able to equalize that there's there's nothing else that's equal in value to that right so now if one child gets the house I guess the other ones are just out of luck just out of luck so you do have to be careful of that what let's talk just a little bit about and we'll end with trust contests so let's say you you the elders deceased and you thought you were gonna get you have two siblings right you thought is gonna be an equal split and you're disinherited what do you get what's the next step parla cross contest and it's not it could also be a will contest right depending on how the assets are hello trust or will and so you're gonna file a contest what are your chances of success with that well I don't know Keith I know the general rule we've been told by judges and CEO Lee's you go to you hear that 30% of will contest or trust contests are successful the judges that we talk to you that we finally get an ear sometimes before trials will be with a judge and chambers and I like to ask them questions if it's not the issue in that case if we mediate with retired judges who have a lot of experience the question is how many cases did you how many will contests or wills or trusts did you invalidate while you were on the bench and I think judge steele who i michael steele great judge out of los angeles he's retired now and he has a great mediation service in los angeles he looked at me and he said Stuart 5% now that's low it's low it could be because of just a lot of bad Laureen or maybe there was a lot of people that didn't have lawyers not to say that they're not smart it's just you can't do these cases on your own but you know I have to think it's more than 5% but at times I wonder you know is it a lot more than 5% and thats cases that go to trial so of the cases that actually went to trial he's saying maybe 5% he actually overturned the documents you have to remember that most cases don't go to trials and definitely not the it's almost like the better the case the less likely it is to go to trial that's right that somebody probably is gonna know that that's that's a ton of case you want to try that's right but what are the chances that you're gonna get everything you want so let's say let's say your case doesn't go to trial you get a settlement you go to somebody like judge seal he's a fantastic mediator he's very good at at brokering a settlement are you gonna get everything that you're entitled to no and and the one thing I've learned in doing this for the last 15 years or so is that both sides have to be a little bit unhappy for it to be a successful settlement and the other thing I've learned is is that our side our clients always feel that the other clients are somehow getting something over on them and vice versa the other side feels that we're getting something over on them and that's where judge steel or a good mediator any good mediator that's where they make their money because they have to be able to show that it's a fair result for both sides based upon the facts that have been learned in Discovery and presented and so forth and then ultimately that judge has to give those parties to to agree to sign up and and and settle the matter but you're not going to get everything you want but even if you go to trial you're not gonna get everything you want it's rare that you go into trial and get a slam-dunk and walk away saying gosh I sure am glad I litigate here for the last three years on that matter yeah even though enough financial door abuse claim right so you're going in on financial to reviews you certainly have the right to bring that claim but you also have the burden to prove that claim and you can think that you're right as rain but that doesn't mean that you have the evidence to back it up or that the judge or jury is gonna agree with you once you present that evidence you have to overcome a pretty big burden right so you definitely have the the cause of action and the claim but winning that claim isn't always the easiest thing to do unfortunately right but you still have to try and I do want to be sensitive here and just point out that when I say that like you would be going after your inheritance if you were disinherited because somebody exercised undue influence which is both a claim for trust contest but also financial elder abuse but part of the reason you're doing that is to stick up for your the elder I mean it's not just I mean and this is addresses the greedy error issue right is oh you'd only reason you're suing Stuart is because you're a greedy heir and you want money well and I think you're right a hundred percent I know how I feel about my parents and if they pass I want to feel good about the fact that I was their son that I did good in their minds and that they treated all three of their children equally if I was disinherited and and I'd say my sister was disinherited and my brother was the one that got us both disinherited I couldn't live with that I couldn't live with that being the legacy of what my parents wanted so it's not the money at all for me at least at that point in time I mean money always comes in an equation at some point but money's more a measuring stick of showing that equity again and so if if we if me and my sister ended up suing my brother and we all could settle on a division that we could all live with well now I feel like I'm honoring the memory of my parents the legacy of my parents as they felt about me and my sister and they never would have disinherited us and you standing up for what your parents would have wanted if they had not been manipulated right I think that's the important point we hear that a lot I mean time and time again we hear people say in principle yeah it's not about the money and you know it's it's honestly not now the money is a proxy because what else do you have there's no other thing that we can use to set things right that's that's what we're limited by looks like a wrongful death case if somebody's killed by the negligence of somebody else you can't bring that person back to life right the only thing you have is money to make that and it doesn't make it you can never replace that person but that's the only measuring stick you have to show that there was worth and value that that was a unique individual who is now no longer here and there's a loss to the family that's left behind it's the only justice that's left yeah so I wanted to do you have any other thoughts on know what you so really I think we can sum up the financial elder abuse from perspective or at least what we talked about today I mean number one I think you have to watch out for the red flags I think that they can be out there and you shouldn't second-guess yourself and number two when you see financial door abuse you certainly can report it too and I'm going to give some sites here a few government agencies when it comes to things like physical elder abuse but we're talking about more financial side there are things that you can do and those claims do last beyond and elders death and I think that's the important thing too is it even though taking action during life is very difficult once the elder dies you do have rights that you can assert on behalf of that elder and on behalf of yourself in order to make things right again right and I think that's the important part but it's very it's a it's a very growing epidemic we're seeing it a lot it's in ninety percent of our cases and it's very devious I mean the way that people work and the way that people take assets from an elder they're getting more and more sophisticated okay can I make one suggestion I know you're gonna go through some sites that people can go on report can you also as we're talking here include a there there's a there's a Google search you can do and you can pull up Mickey Rooney testify Congress and Mickey Rooney before he passed away he was subject to awful physical and financial elder abuse and he was called to testify in front of Congress about this a few years back it was just before he passed away and I'm not much of a crier but I watched that testimony and I I got a little teared up as I watched it and he you know he talked about feeling powerless right not having the ability to take care of himself and having these people manipulate and being right and this is a guy that had money and means and he had you know you presume family members that would be around to keep this from happening and yet it happened to him right and and I think you gave staffs that one in 14 cases is reported so if you get a chance look up the Mickey Rooney Mickey Rooney Congress testimony on financial elder abuse and it's it's eye-opening ya know I remember watching that is really powerful it's powerful stuff the other thing you may want to check out if you have questions about financial door abuse or want more information there's a website called victim canet connect org so that's victim connect dot org they have some great information about elder abuse you can also look up the California Adult Protective Services that's c.d.s SCA gov and that's the state website that talks about Adult Protective Services every county has their own Adult Protective Services Agency that you can report elder abuse to and we talked to people all the time who do report elder abuse to Adult Protective Services and there's some cases where it works out really well there's a few cases unfortunately where it doesn't work out so well it just depends on the circumstances and the facts well let's be clear to that I think you're gonna get more their attention on physical elder abuse but if you see financial other abuse report it just report any type of abuse of an elder you know it doesn't always have to be physical if it's bad enough from a financial standpoint an investigation won't be opened yeah absolutely yeah when in doubt report it and there's also a site called American Society on Aging that has some great tips on preventing financial elder abuse and that's at a s aging org that's a s aging org at the American Society on Aging and just one last comment what about people come in all the time and they say okay this you know all this terrible stuff happened it was financial elder reviews there is a bad amendment to a you know a caregiver who's trying to take everything I want to press criminal charges yeah it's not gonna happen and and it's not because it shouldn't happen it should happen but it's not gonna happen and the reason is is limited resources unless it's a famous case even Mickey Rooney's case I don't think the the prosecuting office got involved maybe they did but most cases they're not if you call the prosecutor's office up or you try to call the police and make a police report they're gonna tell you this is a civil matter go figure it out the prosecutor's office if you call them say we want you to prosecute this terrible thing that happened they're gonna say look we've got rapes we've got murders we've got aggravated assaults we're just trying to keep those going forward we're not going be able to get to your issue of them somebody stealing some money from your mom or dad as bad as that is and that's why there's a civil system for you and then civil litigants like any like you you can't bring criminal charges I think that's important to point out so if somebody's been harmed by financial abuse you're not allowed to bring criminal charges the district attorney has to do that that's right and we recently talked to somebody that was a former FBI agent and I think we both explained to him look if you go into a bank and you brought up the bank and you take just twenty thousand five thousand dollars from a bank you're gonna go to jail for twenty years but if you take millions of dollars from an estate by using undue influence through at a new estate plan of some kind or done a new amendment or something like that chances are you will never see the inside of a cell I've I've been practicing for over eighteen years I haven't seen it once yeah so unfortunately that's the grim reality of the criminal side of this but you do have your rights and you definitely should consider standing up and fighting for those rights when you are unfortunately the victim of financial abuse and we see at ninety percent of our cases we say a lot we do so want to thank you very much for joining us today is obviously a very important topic and we'll be talking about it I'm sure at some point in the future and we look forward to seeing you again next time we'll see you next time.