Aging seniors and ‘suspicious circumstances’

Widower’s will challenged in Ontario court

It’s known as “a will challenge,” a genteel name for a civil trial in Ontario Superior Court in which two caregivers are alleged to have isolated an elderly vulnerable man, taken over as his prime beneficiaries and then “ransacked” his bank accounts.

Christos (Chris) Vloyiannitis died May 19, 2013, at the age of 78, a day after he was taken by ambulance to hospital in nearby Trenton nearly unconscious.

According to a doctor who saw him there, Vloyiannitis was “in horrible condition” — unkempt, severely underweight and with untreated diabetic wounds on his fingers and feet.

The admitting sheet at hospital identified “the presenting complaint” as “failure to thrive,” a diagnosis more common in infants and young children, though Vloyiannitis died of renal failure.

He arrived at hospital with Do Not Resuscitate and “no comfort” orders.

The caregiving team, Terry and Pam Cross, say through their lawyer, Jim Hunt, that they were devoted to Vloyiannitis and tried to persuade him to go to doctors and to take better care of himself.

In fact, Hunt told Judge Bruce Glass, it was Vloyiannitis who was the controlling force in the relationship.

“He was an assertive man who dealt with his own matters as he wished,” Hunt said. “He was a single-minded, clear-thinking, authoritative individual who made decisions for himself.”

But according to Elliot Birnboim, lawyer for Vloyiannitis’s sister, Angelique Koutoumanos, who is contesting the will, from the moment in November of 2010 that the caregivers executed the documents making them Vloyiannitis’s major beneficiaries and giving them power of attorney for both personal care and property, until the former ships worker died, the Crosses were “spending on average $13,000 a month” of his money.

Vloyiannitis, Birnboim said, signed the wills and powers-of-attorney just two days before his wife, Marjorie, died. She was obviously ailing before her death, and Vloyiannitis was emotionally upset and vulnerable.

He had also been dependent for years on prescription medication, including morphine, for chronic pain.

And since moving from Toronto to Brighton, Ont., in 2009, he was also away from his relatives there. When his sister and her son tried to arrange visits, “they were frustrated” by the Crosses, who allegedly told relatives, “Don’t come; he doesn’t want visitors.”

Not only did Vloyiannitis not have the emotional wherewithal or capacity to know what he was signing, Birnboim said, there was also “overwhelming abuse of this vulnerability” by the Crosses.

He even missed his wife’s funeral, Birnboim said, though he was emotionally distraught and left weeping by the loss of his partner of 36 years.

Central to the issue of whether Vloyiannitis had what’s called “the testamentary capacity” to sign the will and powers of attorney or whether the Crosses “exercised undue influence” upon him was the advice he purportedly received from a local lawyer, Daniel Thompson.

Thompson isn’t a party to the trial, but a witness.

Birnboim told the judge that the issue is that while the court may usually be “comforted” that an elderly person in such a situation has a lawyer, that may not hold true if the lawyer didn’t look for “red flags” that might tell him if the person was being improperly influenced.

Thompson has yet to testify. Though he was sworn in on Tuesday, legal issues delayed the start of his evidence.

In will cases, there’s a doctrine of what’s called “suspicious circumstances”: It means, are there reasons to examine the disputed will with extra care?

The legal test, Birnboim said, is “is there some evidence of suspicious circumstances? This case is replete with suspicious circumstances … This case should be a real concern to the court.”

Vloyiannitis was a Greek immigrant who came to Canada, first working on Great Lakes ships, then as a cab driver. His late wife had moved to Brighton in 2004, and Vloyiannitis commuted between the two places for several years before moving to live there full time.

The relationship with the Crosses began when Pam Cross began working for Marjorie Vloyiannitis, first as a housekeeper, then as a caregiver after she fell ill.

The issues in the trial may become more common in the next decade, as Canada continues to grey, with the 2016 census showing that for the first time, there are more people 65 years and older than those under 14. And, with more seniors remaining in their homes, more of them may be reliant upon caregivers.

The trial continues.

IN FACT, HUNT TOLD THE JUDGE, IT WAS VLOYIANNITIS WHO WAS THE CONTROLLING FORCE.