[WSBAPT] Off-topic Assistance: Guardianship of Incapacitated Adult w/Developmental Disability

[David Faber]

I am working with a married couple who has a lay guardianship over their
autistic son. When I agreed to take this case, I did so on two bases: (1) I
have a personal relationship with the clients and they specifically wanted
me to help them and (2) they already have an established guardianship in
another county, so I figured that renewing the guardianship would be as
easy as changing venue to Jefferson County and asking for an *ex parte* order
from the judge reaffirming the guardianship/letters (which is all that
would be required had the guardianship already existed in Jefferson
County). Had that been the extent of it, I would be quite comfortable right
now. Unfortunately, our local judge apparently likes to hold a full-blown
hearing on an adult guardianship subject to a change of venue, even where
the guardianship has already been proven in another Washington court. The
guardians paid to have a guardian *ad litem* appointed the first time, but
they're trying to avoid unnecessary costs at this point in time so they
don't want to do it again. The problem being that the incapacitated person
reacts quite negatively to discussion of his incapacity, which suggests
that hauling him into court would be unproductive and/or potentially
disastrous.

Is there a rule or case law that I haven't seen that states a guardianship
subject to a change of venue has to have a full-blown hearing before it is
reaffirmed? Does anyone have any bright ideas of how to (a) save the
clients the cash of hiring a GAL and (b) prevent us from having to have a
full hearing that might cause more problems than it solves?

Thank you.

Best,
David J. Faber
Faber Feinson PLLC
210 Polk Street, Suite 1
Port Townsend, WA 98368
(360) 379-4110

*** NOTICE: ATTORNEY CLIENT COMMUNICATION - PRIVILEGED & CONFIDENTIAL.
This communication may contain privileged or other confidential
information. If you are not the intended recipient, or believe that
you have received this communication in error, please do not print,
copy, retransmit, disseminate, or otherwise use the information. Also,
please indicate to the sender that you have received this communication in
error, and destroy the copy you received.***
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/wsbapt/attachments/20160606/702ee2cb/attachment.html>