USA TODAY International Edition
Britney Spears’ ‘ civil death’ all too common
Like many conservatees, little control over her life
“This conservatorship killed my dreams,” Britney Spears said over the weekend, after winning her court fight to choose her own lawyer and telling the world she wanted her father investigated for conservatorship abuse. All she has now, she wrote on Instagram, is hope.
Spears is the nation’s most well- known conservatee, and her conservatorship is highly unusual in certain ways. She is a relatively young woman earning hundreds of millions of dollars in jobs that have made her world famous. But the most troubling aspect of Ms. Spears’ situation is that many of her travails are commonplace for the approximately 1.3 million people under conservatorship ( also called guardianship).
As her case has shown, conservatorship is often used too readily, without adequate consideration of less restrictive alternatives, and gives the conservator too many powers for longer than is necessary.
Once a petition for conservatorship is filed – in Spears’ case by her father – the subject of that petition enters a legal universe in which the normal rules should apply but often don’t. Take for instance the right to choose one’s own attorney. Spears was denied that right at the outset of her conservatorship based on a report that her chosen attorney was not permitted to see. Last Wednesday, 13 years later, she finally was granted that right.
As the ACLU and other disability rights advocates argued in a friend of the court brief, in a conservatorship proceeding where fundamental liberties are at stake, the Constitution protects the right to choose one’s lawyer to zealously advocate on one’s behalf.
Alarming abuse allegations
There are indications from transcripts that Ms. Spears’ court- appointed counsel failed in the basic obligation to educate her about her legal rights, including that she was not barred from getting married, as she wished to do.
When there are significant assets, a conservator’s ability to profit from his role raises questions about whether he’s taking into account the conservatee’s wishes or even acting exclusively in her best interests. In Spears’ case, there are alarming allegations of abuse that include being forced to work and being medicated in order to do so.
Another risk of any conservatorship is that it will live on forever, far past the resolution of any crisis that may have precipitated it. Though experts recommend that courts regularly review the continuing need for conservatorship and inform conservatees of the opportunity to restore their rights, terminations of guardianship remain rare and difficult to obtain. If individuals want to terminate the conservatorship, they often bear the burden of proving it is no longer necessary when, according to best practices, the burden should be on the party opposing the termination to make the case that it needs to continue.
In addition, the ability to profit makes it less likely that the conservator will act to terminate a money- making conservatorship. Notably, though a court investigator in 2016 recommended “a pathway to independence and the eventual termination of the conservatorship” for Spears, little seems to have been done to set her on that “pathway to independence” over the past five years.
Vast scope of restrictions
Conservatorships are often championed as a way to assist individuals who might lose their assets due to financial exploitation or mismanagement. But we should be cautious about this rationale.
First, research suggests that the problem of guardians engaging in financial abuse and neglect is significant.
Second, a conservatee’s funds can be dissipated by the conservatorship itself. For example, here, while her father was allegedly protecting her funds, she was required to pay many millions of dollars in his commissions and salary, his lawyers’ fees, money to various experts and consultants, and those of her own court- appointed legal team.
As in many other conservatorships, the court here failed to narrowly tailor the scope or meaningfully consider less restrictive alternatives, such as letting her manage the funds she was earning or giving her greater control over her daily life, including choices about her medical care. It also failed to consider supported decision- making, in which a person retains the legal right to make decisions but receives assistance from trusted advisers in the process.
What was perhaps most noteworthy about Ms. Spears’ recent testimony was the vast control that the conservatorship exercised over her life and the ways she was precluded from doing those things, big and small, that make us who we are. She wanted another child and a less grueling work schedule, to pick her therapist, get her nails done, see a friend she had met in Alcoholics Anonymous. She wanted to have her boyfriend drive her in his car.
For her, as for many others, this guardianship was truly a “civil death.” It is no wonder that Spears asked the court to return her life to her.