Justice for Piela came three years after death
A social worker, lawyer and two others who conspired to take advantage of an 89-year-old Montreal woman and took her life savings have been ordered to pay her succession more than $500,000.
“This case is about elder abuse,” Quebec Superior Court Judge Gary D.D. Morrison wrote in his recent ruling, later describing the “outrage” anyone would feel upon learning what was done.
After a lengthy civil trial, social worker Alissa Kerner, her husband, lawyer Charles Gelber, Anita Obodzinski and her husband, Arthur Trzciakowski, have all been ordered to pay punitive and moral damages. Their conduct was so egregious and intertwined, Morrison wrote, that it’s hard to separate who’s to blame for what.
In order to take control of Veronika Piela’s life against her will, they falsified medical documents, broke into her home to access her personal information, then misled the court to have a protection mandate put in place — a legal document that gave Obodzinski, who lied about being Piela’s niece, control of her well-being and finances.
Lastly, the judge noted, they removed Piela from her home and “strategically” isolated her in a seniors’ residence, telling the owner she was barred from communicating with others. All while taking roughly $474,000 from her bank accounts.
A few days after being placed in the residence, in Feb. 2014, Piela escaped by walking out into the cold with her walker.
“I was hoping somebody would see me, save my life,” she told the Montreal Gazette in 2016.
The plan worked: a bystander gave her a coat and called police.
A lengthy court battle then ensued. Piela eventually had the mandate overturned after doctors found she was sound of mind and capable of taking care of her affairs. The court ordered her money returned to her.
Piela died following a stroke in Dec. 2016 — a few days after testifying in criminal court — but not before suing for damages, which led to Morrison’s April 16 judgment.
“This is an important decision for all elderly people who have been victims of abuse,” the lawyer leading the suit, Igor Dogaru, said on Monday. “Ms. Piela first fought to regain her civil rights and property. Then her battle was to get justice for what happened to her.”
In his decision, Morrison questions how it came to be that a woman who was later declared completely apt of taking care of herself was once described by a doctor as incapable of answering even the most basic questions.
In order to obtain the protection mandate, Obodzinski enlisted Kerner and a doctor she recommended, Lindsay Goldsmith, to prepare the necessary psychosocial and medical reports.
Gelber, the lawyer, took care of the court proceedings.
When a court clerk first refused to put the mandate into effect, citing a need for a more detailed psychosocial report from Kerner, Gelber wrote to his wife to suggest how to word the new report. “You can spice this up a little bit if you want,” he wrote to Kerner about the report.
Goldsmith, who completed the medical report and was named as a defendant in the civil case, never faced criminal charges or disciplinary charges before her professional order.
Her involvement in the case centres on a Nov. 2013 meeting she had at Piela’s apartment that led to her medical assessment.
But in his ruling, Morrison questions whether that meeting was an elaborate “fake scene” set up by Obodzinski and Kerner, who were both present, to ensure Goldsmith determined Piela couldn’t take care of herself.
Goldsmith found Piela to be living in excessive squalor, surrounded by opened liquor bottles and filth. She was unable to answer basic questions and didn’t understand English.
But when Piela later testified in court, she “answered questions, participated actively in back-andforth conversation and used words in English and in French.” Goldsmith would say she was “blown away” by the testimony and that it seemed “impossible” to her that it was the same person she met in the apartment.
Piela, for her part, always maintained she had never met Goldsmith. There is also no evidence she ever had an alcohol problem.
The judge put forward two possibilities: either Obodzinksi and Kerner had drugged Piela to render her unable of answering any questions — there is proof, he noted, that Kerner had tried to obtain tranquillizers and anti-psychotic drugs to give to Piela — or the person Goldsmith met that day was a “stand-in” and not actually Piela.
He ruled the latter more likely to be the case and dismissed the lawsuit against Goldsmith.
In deciding the damages to award, Morrison ruled it important to remember Piela’s past. Before coming to Canada, she had been forced into a Nazi concentration camp in her youth.
“To find herself once again, in her advanced age (…) physically forced into a place where she did not want to be, with no right to communicate with anyone on the outside, cannot and should not be underestimated,” he wrote.
The judge ordered Obodzinski, Trzciakowski, Kerner and Gelber are to pay a combined $200,000 in moral damages. As for punitive damages, he ordered Obodzinski pay $100,000, Kerner and Gelber pay $75,000 each and Trzciakowski pay $50,000.
Morrison noted that though different proceedings have taken place, in criminal court and before different professional orders, none of the defendants has served any jail time for what was done.
Obodzinksi pleaded guilty in criminal court and was convicted of obstruction of justice and different forgery-related offences. She received a two-year conditional sentence to serve in the community. She later breached her conditions but is appealing that decision.
Trzciakowski pleaded guilty to breaking into Piela’s apartment and received a conditional discharge.
Kerner pleaded guilty to charges related to the break-in and received a conditional discharge. In 2016, she was barred from Quebec’s order of social workers for three years for her involvement in two cases, including Piela’s.
Gelber was never charged in criminal court. In 2018, the Quebec bar suspended him for 18 months for his role in Piela’s affairs.