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 →
Today, most states authorize the use of some form of psychiatric advance directive (PAD). PADs are similar to the more familiar “advance medical directive,” typically used in connection with end-of-life medical decision-making. An “advance medical directive” (also known as a “health care advance directive” or “instruction directive”) is a written statement made by a patient.. read more →
In a published opinion, the New Jersey Appellate Division took a further step away from requiring strict compliance with statutory formalities required for wills when it considered whether an unexecuted copy of a typed original will “sufficiently represents decedent’s final testamentary intent to be admitted into probate under N.J.S.A. 3B:3-3.” The court found that it.. 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 →
Under existing federal law, spouses who pass away can leave property of any value to their surviving spouses free of federal estate taxes. This is called the “unlimited marital deduction.” However, under the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), a federal law passed in 1996, marriage is defined as “only a legal union between one man.. read more →
An appeals court in New Jersey held that a nursing home resident’s adult child who signed a nursing home admission agreement as the “Responsible Party” can be sued in his/her individual capacity for monies owed to the facility for services rendered to the resident if the adult child fails to use the resident’s financial resources.. read more →
Two types of taxes can be assessed against property that passes to your heirs after you die. They are: estate taxes and inheritance taxes. Estate taxes are further divided into two types, depending upon the taxing authority imposing the tax. Federal estate taxes are imposed by the U.S. government, while state estate taxes are imposed.. read more →
Currently, the value of assets passing to heirs upon the death of a U.S. citizen free of federal estate taxes, called the federal estate tax exemption amount, is $5.12 million dollars per person. This federal estate tax exemption amount is valid through the end of 2012. In the past, upon the death of the first.. read more →
(Below I have reproduced a portion of the legal argument section in a brief we recently filed to support an application asking the court to effectuate the intent of a decedent by reforming a trust created by the decedent into a special needs trust so that the decedent’s surviving adult disabled child could maintain her.. read more →
Most people die without having executed a valid Last Will and Testament. Among the factors cited for the decision not to execute a will are: the legal fees associated; the reluctance to confront one’s own mortality; a general distaste of lawyers; the belief that a will is only necessary for those with large estates; and.. read more →
At the time of the Court’s decision, Marie Fecoskay was an 87 year old woman who had been admitted to the hospital because of an infection. A few days after admission, Mrs. Fecoskay went into cardiac arrest, became comatose as a result of oxygen deprivation and was placed on a ventilator with feeding tube. The.. read more →
Rita Stein, on behalf of herself and as executrix of the estate of her deceased husband Milton Stein, filed a lawsuit in federal court against the County of Nassau, the Nassau County Police Department, and four emergency responders. Rita claimed that the emergency responders violated her and her husband’s rights under the Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth.. read more →
I am presently involved in a lawsuit in which my clients, three adult children of their now deceased father, are suing their deceased father’s former agent under a Power of Attorney. As alleged in the Verified Complaint filed by plaintiffs, the adult children claimed that the decedent either was incompetent when he signed the Power.. read more →
In this case, the decedent, William McLellan, created an irrevocable life insurance trust for the primary benefit of his wife and children in 2006. The life insurance trust was funded with a $2.5 million life insurance policy. Plaintiff, Lois Jean McLellan, the spouse of the decedent and mother of two of decedent’s four children, was.. read more →
A New Jersey appeals court upheld the imposition of a penalty period on a nursing home resident’s receipt of Medicaid benefits, holding that the resident failed to rebut the presumption that a court-ordered payment made to the resident’s adult children for previously uncompensated services provided under a power of attorney was not a valid payment.. read more →
Matter of Mildred B. Trocolor involved a dispute between two of the decedent’s adult children who were co-executors of the decedent’s estate. The decedent’s daughter, Daryl, brought the lawsuit, alleging that, while the decedent, Mildred B. Trocolor, was alive, the defendants, her brother Robert and his wife, Genevieve, stole substantial sums of money from the.. read more →
Superior Court Judge Walter Koprowski, Jr. ruled on February 1, 2011 that handwritten notations on a hand-written letter constituted a valid will, although the letter itself did not. In Estate of Randall, the decedent’s cousin, plaintiff Charles Cameron, III, offered for probate two pages of a photocopied letter from 1998, with original marginal notations. The.. read more →
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D/NV) has introduced legislation designed to enact the tax cut compromise that was reached last week between President Obama and Senate Republicans. Entitled the “Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010,” the present bill is structured as an amendment to current law enacted in 2001 under.. read more →
Thomas Saccone is a retired Newark, NJ firefighter. He and his wife’s only son, Anthony, suffers from severe mental disabilities. Tom is a long-standing estate planning client of my law firm. Tom has shown himself to be a devoted husband and father who is relentless in his efforts to plan his estate in order to.. read more →
New Jersey estate planning attorneys were again reminded of the conflict of interest minefield they face in In Re Buscavage, N.J. App. Div. No. A-6041-08AT3 (Aug. 25, 2010). Buscavage involved a challenge to trust amendments made by the decedent, Joseph Buscavage, in the final year of his life, which favored certain members of his family,.. read more →
Lawyers who regularly deal with elderly and disabled clients like I do often confront the issue of client capacity. Under our professional rules, a lawyer may represent a client who has less than full capacity, although a lawyer is precluded from representing a client who lacks capacity. The issue confronting the lawyer involves properly assessing.. read more →
The New Jersey Foundation for Aging was founded in 1998 to improve the quality of life of New Jersey’s older residents. The Foundation is a nongovernmental, nonprofit organization that derives its financial support through contributions from private donors, public and private foundations and corporations. The mission of the Foundation is “to improve and expand new.. read more →
Most of the cases discussed on this blog (and, I suspect, on most blogs which spotlight developments in the law) focus principally on decisions issued by the higher-level courts, the appellate courts and the supreme court of the state. However, the majority of court decisions in New Jersey and other states are issued by trial.. read more →
A New Jersey administrative law judge (ALJ) recently held, contrary to a court order awarding wages for services rendered, that a payment to the adult children of a Medicaid applicant for services rendered under a power of attorney was properly considered to be a gift by the State’s Division of Medical Assistance and Health Service.. read more →
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