Panel: State has lots to do

Statewide database needed to track guardianship cases

Florida lawmakers should create a statewide database to track guardianship cases, reduce conflicts of interest within the industry and support alternatives to court-appointed decision-makers, a task force recommended this week ahead of the 2022 legislative session.

The Guardianship Improvement Task Force — an effort spearheaded by the state’s clerks of court that also included judges, attorneys, guardians, advocates and other stakeholders — formed this summer amid the #FreeBritney movement and the continuing fallout from a statewide scandal sparked in 2019 by a former Orlando guardian accused of abusing and neglecting an elderly man who died.

The former conservatorship of pop star Britney Spears captivated the nation but it “doesn’t hold a candle” to some of the guardianship abuse cases seen in Florida, said Sam Sugar, founder of the organization Americans Against Abusive Probate Guardianship.

“It is absolutely imperative that the Legislature and the executive branch take immediate action to stop these abuses and to use the lesson of Britney Spears to educate the public to how critically important it is to protect our seniors — and even our mega superstars — from a process that is just egregious,” he said.

Sugar, whose organization was represented on the task force, said he hopes state lawmakers take the recommendations seriously, especially the proposal that legislators offer more education to judges about advance directives, which spell out a

person’s wishes in the event they are incapacitated, and estate planning documents.

“Perhaps the most important [recommendation] in terms of preventing guardianships is making sure that the courts and [Florida Bar]

understand that they can no longer ignore or revoke or otherwise attack properly constituted advanced directives,” he said. “That is the single biggest problem that we have, and that problem winds up creating many of the abusive guardianships

that we see.”

During multiple meetings, task force members cited the case of Rebecca Fierle, the former Orlando guardian who resigned from hundreds of cases across the state after her incapacitated client, 75-year-old Steven Stryker, died at a Tampa hospital in 2019.

Medical staff were unable to attempt to save Stryker’s life because Fierle had signed a “do not resuscitate” order against his wishes and the protests of his daughter, health-care surrogate and psychiatrist.

Fierle, who has pleaded not guilty, is currently facing criminal charges in Stryker’s death.

Auditors and news outlets, including the Orlando Sentinel, exposed conflicts of interest in Fierle’s

handling of incapacitated clients and widespread flaws in Florida’s guardianship system, which later sparked reforms.

One probe discovered Fierle was improperly billing AdventHealth for providing services to Stryker — one of almost 700 of the company’s vulnerable patients who received services from Fierle to the tune of nearly $4 million over a decade, according to an audit by the office of Orange County Comptroller Phil Diamond.

The recommendations approved by the task force at their Nov. 15 meeting included prohibiting health care facilities and nursing homes from proposing or recommending a guardian for any patient in their care to minimize potential conflicts of interests.

These facilities should also demonstrate they exhausted all other options before asking a judge to appoint a guardian, the task force said.

“This is the Rebecca Fierle situation,” said Shannon Miller, a task force member and Gainesville elder law attorney, during the meeting. “It’s problematic, and we think it’s still happening. ... We don’t want [a professional guardian’s] paycheck to be coming from the hospital where that alleged incapacitated person may be removed and placed into a subpar facility.”

Diamond said he was glad to see that many of the recommendations made in audits done by his office were included in the task force’s report.

“I think that the task force’s recommendations will go a long way towards helping to protect Florida’s most vulnerable,” the comptroller said.

Another issue exposed by the Fierle case was the lack of good data available to Orange County judges, Diamond said.

“Nobody knew that Rebecca Fierle had initiated something like 280 cases in Orange County,” he said. “... Our concerns about a lack of data on a local level are just magnified on a statewide level when you think about the huge number of guardianships and guardians.”

Aside from collecting information on guardianships statewide, the task force also recommended that lawmakers track guardians in a public database that includes their registrations, qualifications and the number of incapacitated clients assigned to them. Chief judges would also be notified by the database whenever a guardian who practices in their circuit is disciplined.

Anthony Palmieri, deputy inspector general and chief guardianship investigator with the Palm Beach County Clerk and Comptroller, said he’s optimistic about the Legislature having a robust conversation about data transparency and guardianship.

The Palm Beach office has created its own data monitoring system for guardians, as well as a guardianship fraud hotline.

Palmieri said the task force couldn’t move forward on some issues because of the lack of data.

“How can decision-makers, policymakers, legislators, judges [or] agency heads make decisions without data?” he asked. “I’m hoping the Legislature really focuses on that. It’s the No. 1 recommendation in our report. Without the data, I think we’re really taking steps backwards.”

The task force also asked lawmakers to approve supported decision-making as an alternative that must be considered by judges before appointing a guardian.

Supported decision-making allows people with disabilities to make their own decisions with the support of people they trust.

Michael Lincoln-McCreight, a Port St. Lucie security officer who became the first person in Florida to end his guardianship using this method, said he expects legislators to seriously consider enshrining the option in state law.

Lincoln-McCreight said a coalition he co-chairs is planning to bring forth a bill on supported decision-making in the next session.

“It will open a lot of doors for us,” he said. “... Hopefully people with disabilities are able to get out of guardianship that they don’t need to be in.”