The Special Needs Trust Fairness Act, recently introduced in the U.S. House and Senate, would permit competent individuals with disabilities to establish their own self-settled special needs trusts. The proposed law should be quickly enacted. Congress legally recognized the use of self-settled Supplemental Needs Trusts (sometimes called Special Needs Trusts) (“SNTs”) in 1993. SNTs allow.. read more →
A New York judge held that the trustees of a special needs trust have a duty to the disabled beneficiary to inquire into the beneficiary’s condition and to apply trust income to improving it, and that it is not sufficient for the trustees to simply safeguard the assets in the trust. Matter of JP Morgan.. read more →
New Jersey Supreme Court Rules That Order Awarding Child Support To Disabled Child May Be Modified By Establishing Special Needs Trust For Child
In an opinion that breaks sharply with established practice, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that an application by a divorced spouse to pay child support for a disabled child into a special needs trust should be granted where the proponent shows that it is in child’s best interest to do so. This is a.. read more →
Justice Laura L. Jacobson, a New York trial judge, held that a trustee of a special needs trust breached its fiduciary duty to the trust beneficiary and ordered reimbursement of nearly $180,000 that was misspent on private caregivers, cab rides, and medications that could have been obtained from needs-based government sources. Liranzo v. LI Jewish.. read more →
A Federal court held that a special needs trust is not valid because it was created by the parents of the beneficiary while the parents were acting as the beneficiary’s agents under a power of attorney. Draper v. Colvin (U.S. Dist. Ct., D. S.D., No. 12-4091-KES, July 10, 2013). Stephany Draper suffered a traumatic brain injury.. read more →
The following post contains a summary of the noteworthy trust cases decided by New Jersey courts in the past year and a half, in chronological order. I also included links to the articles about the cases posted on this blog. (1) Pfeifer v. Langone, 2012 N.J. Super. Unpub. LEXIS 429 (App. Div. Feb. 29, 2012)… read more →
The Social Security Administration (SSA) has revised its Program Operations Manual System (POMS) to allow first-party trusts to pay for travel expenses incurred by non-beneficiaries in limited cases. In addition, the revised POMS clarifies the rule that payment of some administrative expenses upon early termination of the trust or otherwise, including trustee fees, will not.. read more →
Presentation on the Impact of Elder Law Issues on Divorce Mediation
On Saturday, April 27, 2013, I presented a session on the impact of elder law issues on divorce mediation at the 2013 Annual Divorce Mediation Seminar by the New Jersey Association of Professional Mediators. The topics covered in my session included Social Security, including retirement, disability and survivors benefits, Supplemental Security Income benefits, Medicare, Medicaid,.. read more →
Recently, the New Jersey Supreme Court granted a Petition for Certification I filed asking the Court to review a decision of the appellate division denying a request by my client, a retired fireman, to designate as beneficiary of his public pension death benefits a special needs trust he established in his Last Will and Testament. This.. read more →
A California appeals court ruled that a trial court inappropriately awarded trustee fees to the successor trustee of a special needs trust despite clear language in the trust prohibiting a successor trustee from receiving a fee. As a result, the trustee did not receive any of his fees that had totaled over six figures. Thorpe v… read more →
The New Jersey Hospital Care Payment Assistance Program, commonly called “Charity Care,” is a state program for New Jersey residents with low income and resources who have no health insurance and are not eligible for programs like Medicaid and NJ FamilyCare. There are many people in New Jersey who have no insurance or health benefits.. read more →
The parties in this case had a brief relationship which resulted in the birth of a daughter. Several months prior to the child’s birth, defendant/father, Marcos Cozze, Jr., was in a devastating motor vehicle accident which resulted in permanent brain damage. A lawsuit was filed on defendant’s behalf. More than three (3) years later, a.. read more →
(The 15th Annual Elder and Disability Law Symposium was held on October 3, 2012 at the New Jersey Law Center, in New Brunswick, NJ. This year, as in the past few years, I gave the case law update at the opening plenary session by summarizing the top ten (10) or so elder and disability law.. read more →
For the past several years, I have represented Thomas Saccone, a retired Newark, NJ firefighter with a severely disabled adult child named Anthony. Anthony lives with his parents, is unable to work, has been found to be totally disabled by the Social Security Administration, and for many years has received Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and.. read more →
A New Jersey appeals court recently affirmed a trial court judgment dividing the assets remaining in a supplemental needs trust established for a deceased adult child with special needs between the child’s parents even though the biological father was a “deadbeat dad,” paying no child support, contributing nothing to his daughter’s medical care and visiting.. read more →
In a recent precedential decision, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Judicial Circuit held that laws passed by the State of Pennsylvania designed to regulate special needs trusts (SNT) which placed greater restrictions on the SNTs than were contained in federal law governing SNTs “transgress[ed] federal intent” and were preempted by federal.. read more →
The Social Security Administration (SSA) recently revised four sections of the Program Operations Manual System (POMS). The POMS is a primary source of information used by Social Security employees to process claims for Social Security and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits. Most of the changes to the POMS sections were administrative in nature. However, the.. read more →
In Bond v. Bond, the Appellate Division considered whether a non-custodial parent’s creation of a special needs trust (“SNT”) can justify the elimination of that parent’s obligation to pay child support. Although it concluded that the non-custodial parent “may utilize a special needs trust to take advantage of government programs to lessen the burden on.. read more →
Divorce is never easy, but if a child or spouse with special needs is involved, there are special considerations. At the same time, family law attorneys aren’t always familiar with how to best protect a spouse or child with special needs during a divorce. Elder law attorneys can provide information to family law attorneys who.. read more →
(This is part 4 of a 4-part blog post on the subject of the assignment of various types of income to a special needs trust. This post discusses the assignment of annuities, IRAs and other retirement benefits to a special needs trust. Prior blog posts on this subject can be found here, here and here.).. read more →
(This is part 3 of a 4-part blog post on the subject of the assignment of various types of income to a special needs trust. This post discusses the assignment of child support to a special needs trust. Prior blog posts on this subject can be found here and here.) Child Support SSI’s treatment.. read more →
(This is part 2 of a 4-part blog post on the subject of the assignment of various types of income to a special needs trust. This post discusses the assignment of alimony to a special needs trust. The first post in this series can be found here.) Alimony and Child Support In a nation with.. read more →
(This is the first of a 4-part blog post on the subject of the assignment of various types of income to a special needs trust. The upcoming posts discuss the assignment of alimony, child support, annuities, IRAs and other retirement benefits to a special needs trust. This first post discusses the public policy background of.. read more →
An aged, low-income tenant with disabilities recently prevailed in a lawsuit filed against the Santa Monica Housing Authority, which had incorrectly increased her monthly rent by counting as income money received in a settlement and deposited into a Special Needs Trust. Sheila Finley v. City of Santa Monica, Case No. BS – 127077 (Superior Court.. read more →
(The following is part of a discussion, taken from a listserv, or electronic bulletin board, between attorneys involved in advising trustees of Special Needs Trusts (SNT). This discussion concerns the appropriateness of distributions from a Special Needs Trust to pay for medical marijuana to be used by the trust beneficiary who lives in the State.. read more →
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