Wealth Preservation and Preventive Law Alert Number 9

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You Did Not Protect Your Adult Children

If They Go To the Hospital You May Be the One Who Will Take Care of Them

This Preventive Law Alert was written by: John Goodson, Colleen Manley and Christine Goodson Forakis.

These Preventive Law Alerts are patterned after an annual publication to all mountain climbers called “Accidents in North American Mountaineering” which writes up all mountaineering accidents describing the accident, what caused it, how it may have been prevented so that further mountain climbing catastrophes may be avoided. The Preventive Law Alerts are the equivalent of “Legal Accidents in North American Law” – a description of the legal catastrophe and how it may be avoided using preventive law techniques.

The Legal Catastrophe

Years ago we shared a legal catastrophe with one of our dear family friends. We were sensitive to their feelings about the expenses of legal protection. When we designed their estate plan we hesitated to add additional legal expenses except for what was necessary to take care of the husband and wife. At that time they had intelligent, healthy, adult children. We enjoyed many family dinners at each other’s homes until the shock came – their adult son suddenly became unconscious and terribly ill – a strange disease – neither his kidneys or his lungs were functioning normally.

Their son had no Medical Power of Attorney or Living Will – documents we routinely prepared for his parents. He went to the hospital many times for over a month. The doctors had already told them their son’s organs would never again function normally. Without these legal documents the family could not direct the doctors to stop sustaining his life.

Every day a group of six doctors checked on him, poking and prodding, conferring and billing. Fortunately he had excellent medical insurance from his employer. The family could not require that they allow their son to die a noble death. This scene of pain and family anguish continued until he died and by then had accumulated over $150,000 of medical bills.

The Preventive Law Solution

My dentist had a saying: “Only floss the teeth you want to keep.” The preventive law practitioner says: “Only provide protective legal documents for those family members you truly love.”

Even though it costs more money for the client, it is a shortcoming on the preventive lawyer’s part not to be aggressive, persistent and if need be, pushy, to ensure that a family makes certain that all of their adult children have essential legal emergency documents in place at all times. Every child 18 years and older needs seven Basic Legal Emergency Protective Documents:

1. Durable Mental Health Power of Attorney
2. Durable Medical General Power of Attorney
3. Living Will
4. HIPAA Consent
5. General Power of Attorney
6. Durable Funeral and Burial Instructions
7. Last Will and Testament

As parents, you will most likely be the ones to take care of your adult children when they are admitted to the hospital if they did not make prior arrangements. Therefore, you want to be sure your children and grandchildren have the necessary documents – even if you have to pay the legal bill – because you realize that young people never think anything serious will happen to them for many years and therefore are not inclined to invest in this legal protection.

We help prevent legal accidents in North America!!

For additional information, please call (602) 252-5110.

www.goodsonmanleyforakis.com

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