My mother has dementia. My sister has DPOA. The care home she is in served our mother with an Unlawful Detainer. She is on SSI, and we were recently informed that they have been overcharging her. I had tried to discuss this with them, and they have since refused the SSI payment from us. They have lost payments, have illegally served her a 30 day notice (it should have been 60), and have filed the unlawful detainer without serving her a 60 day. We have a written statement from the attorney stating that we had until the 21st to respond (this is 5 days after I had received the notice of action). Yet, the courthouse had mailed our mother a letter stating that the plea was going in favor for the plaintiff because she had not responded on time... This leads me to believe that they served our mother without anyone present, then mailed the forms, and told the courts that our mother had been served. So the courts were going based off of that. Again, my mother has dementia, and a DPOA. My question is: IS THIS A LEGAL SERVICE? If not, what is the code to site for the courts? To my knowledge, once a person has dementia, and especially once a person has a DPOA in place, there are no legal anythings they are allowed to be party to without the presence of their DPOA
If you cannot afford to help your mother with private legal services, you may be able to get help from a staff attorney at a legal services agency.
Also consider hiring a geriatric care manager, who works for you and your mother to make sure that appropriate care is established and not interrupted. The GCM specializes in finding programs and resources that fit the needs of each individual. There may be sources of payment and other resources available to you that can prevent this serious situation from arising again.
Working with the attorney you select, the GCM could be a key to resolving the current problem.
My concern would be to get the patient out quickly to a place that accepts SSI patients. Document. Call a patient's rights advocate.
This was surprising as I really did expect some results addressing the issue of service of process on someone who may or may not understand what the pleadings or documents meant.
I could make some inferences based on general legal knowledge, such as the care home administration "knew or had knowledge" of your mother's dementia and therefore should have involved your sister as attorney-in-fact pursuant to the DPOA. But there are some really iffy issues here and I have to agree that the best course of action, not only for the issue of service of process but for what also appears to be improper action, is an elder law attorney.
I wish you luck; this sounds like a situation in which your mother's rights were abused by the care home.
If you need guidance on finding an attorney, just post back.
I'm also hoping that one of the resident legal experts will opine on this issue.
Remember to get all of moms medications as they have been likely done in 90 day packs and Medicare &/or Medicaid will not pay for a double dip. Take zippies to put meds in & a sharpie marker to notate info. Meds may be in a locked cart or closet so you have to deal with DON (could be not nice) or floor nurse.
If you all are just dealing with the local NH and their inept biz office, you need to send whatever correspondence to the corporate HQ if it's a chain or to the president of the board if it's an independent NH. Fax & certified mail with the return registered receipt (acm & RRR maybe $ 8.00 fir both @ uspo)
I would check with an Elder Law attorney.