Sonoma County CA separates elderly gay couple and sells their home

[seaboy4hire]

I looked through the forums and didn't see this posted. Of course I've only had maybe a couple hours sleep and missed the posting. So my question is; is this even legal? Did the county have the right to do such a disgusting thing?

 

Clay and his partner of 20 years, Harold, lived in California. Clay and Harold made diligent efforts to protect their legal rights, and had their legal paperwork in place--wills, powers of attorney, and medical directives, all naming each other. Harold was 88 years old and in frail medical condition, but still living at home with Clay, 77, who was in good health.

 

One evening, Harold fell down the front steps of their home and was taken to the hospital. Based on their medical directives alone, Clay should have been consulted in Harold's care from the first moment. Tragically, county and health care workers instead refused to allow Clay to see elderly_man.jpgHarold in the hospital. The county then ultimately went one step further by isolating the couple from each other, placing the men in separate nursing homes.

 

Ignoring Clay's significant role in Harold's life, the county continued to treat Harold like he had no family and went to court seeking the power to make financial decisions on his behalf. Outrageously, the county represented to the judge that Clay was merely Harold's "roommate." The court denied their efforts, but did grant the county limited access to one of Harold's bank accounts to pay for his care.

 

What happened next is even more chilling.

 

Without authority, without determining the value of Clay and Harold's possessions accumulated over the course of their 20 years together or making any effort to determine which items belonged to whom, the county took everything Harold and Clay owned and auctioned off all of their belongings. Adding further insult to grave injury, the county removed Clay from his home and confined him to a nursing home against his will. The county workers then terminated Clay and Harold's lease and surrendered the home they had shared for many years to the landlord.

 

Three months after he was hospitalized, Harold died in the nursing home. Because of the county's actions, Clay missed the final months he should have had with his partner of 20 years. Compounding this tragedy, Clay has literally nothing left of the home he had shared with Harold or the life he was living up until the day that Harold fell, because he has been unable to recover any of his property. The only memento Clay has is a photo album that Harold painstakingly put together for Clay during the last three months of his life.

 

With the help of a dedicated and persistent court-appointed attorney, Anne Dennis of Santa Rosa, Clay was finally released from the nursing home. Ms. Dennis, along with Stephen O'Neill and Margaret Flynn of Tarkington, O'Neill, Barrack & Chong, now represent Clay in a lawsuit against the county, the auction company, and the nursing home, with technical assistance from NCLR. A trial date has been set for July 16, 2010 in the Superior Court for the County of Sonoma.

[NYTomcat]

Ok that is Just disgusting. I hope the county is made to pay through their taxing noses

[Pegasus]

Angry

 

I don't have the words to describe my feelings about this. There is no expletive filthy enough, no angry words angry enough. Outrageous seems weak, and inhuman does not accurately describe the concerted efforts it took for three different agencies to commit multiple atrocities against Clay and Harold.

 

This is what our future looks like. We will be facing these kinds of injustices even after we reach equality. We will have to use legal remedies to hold government agencies accountable, just as African Americans have had to for the last 45 years. We have a long way to go to gain our equality, we have even further to go to feel equal.

[GoodFella69]

I Hope Clay Wins Big!

 

This disturbs me to no end I hope old Clay wins big! The county would never have done this to a straight couple, but the real problem is that the government has the authority to do it at all. The more power is granted to government the more likely it is that government will seek to impose that power over us. Period. If we want to prevent tragedies like this from happening in the future we need to work to reduce the government's authority in our private lives.

Goodfella

[uwsman2]

Is this story taken from a published news report?

 

Seaboy, where did you get this story from? I'd like to follow up on it...

[justaguy]

This is more than chilling. To me it is frightening in the extreme. What strikes me hardest is the fact that they had dilligently attempted to protect themselves from having this happen. I can't help wondering if there was something malicious in all this--or was everyone in a position of power so insensitive as to act in such a monstrous way. I, too, hope that lawsuit is huge in Clay's favor.

[best hotel]

this is so sad....and infuriating

[+ deej]

I'd also like to know where this story comes from. As reported, it just doesn't add up.

 

We're expected to believe the county institutionalized a healthy man of sound mind and body against his will with no other circumstances on the table?

 

Something is being left out.

[KMEM]

Supposedly this appeared in the Press Democrat, a local paper but, so far, all I can find is blog accounts of this.

 

Even if basically true, I can see the same thing happened to a straight but unmarried couple. In other words, this is more or less a variation of when Medicare provides your "final" care, first you have to become completely poverty stricken.

 

Best regards,

KMEM

[+ Gar1eth]

Googling

 

I'd also like to know where this story comes from. As reported, it just doesn't add up.

 

We're expected to believe the county institutionalized a healthy man of sound mind and body against his will with no other circumstances on the table?

 

Something is being left out.

 

Well I googled the term "Clay and "Harold". The story is all over the 'net although I didn't read them. It is even on Dan Savage's Blog. I tried checking snopes.com by entering the word Sonoma to see if the story might be fake, but I didn't find anything.

 

Gman

[+ deej]

Well I googled the term "Clay and "Harold". The story is all over the 'net although I didn't read them. It is even on Dan Savage's Blog. I tried checking snopes.com by entering the word Sonoma to see if the story might be fake, but I didn't find anything.

 

Gman

 

I didn't say fake. Parts of it do ring true. I said incomplete, as in manipulated specifically to make people angry. That's just the kind of story that would get "all over the net" in a hurry.

 

I'd like to hear the full story before getting all rubbed up over it.

[MsGuy]

Nclr

 

I'd also like to know where this story comes from. As reported, it just doesn't add up.

We're expected to believe the county institutionalized a healthy man of sound mind and body against his will with no other circumstances on the table?

Something is being left out.

 

Near as I can tell, the story appears to have originated from the case docket section of the National Center For Lesbian Rights.

http://www.nclrights.org/site/PageServer?pagename=issue_caseDocket_Greene_v_County_of_Sonoma_et_al

 

If you google the case, you'll find this entry on the closed docket of the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors, so the law suit appears to be a real case.

 

"3. The Board of Supervisors will consider the following in closed session: Conference with Legal Counsel-Existing Litigation Name of Case: Clay M. Greene, Jannette Biggerstaff, Executor of the

Estate of Harold Scull, Deceased v. County of Sonoma, et al. Superior Court of California, County of Sonoma, SPR-81815 (Govt. Code Section 54956.9(a))"

----

Deej, I too would like to know more about Clay's physical/mental state at the time.

[+ deej]

Oh, barf.

 

"Adding further insult to grave injury, the county removed Clay from his home and confined him to a nursing home against his will."

 

Against his will? I hope his lawyers go for blood.

[NYTomcat]

PS if you live In Sonoma county your taxes are going up cause you employ the village idiots in social services.

[+ purplekow]

i have seen a similar case with a straight unmarried couple. After living together for 30 years and with the man of the pair caring for the demented woman for about 10 years, he was hospitalized with a serious but non life threatening illness. In the four days he was in the hospital, the woman's daughter had her committed to a nursing home and sold the house which was in the woman's name to her live in partner. When it came time for the man to be discharged, he had no home to which he could return. He wound up in a nursing home until relatives could come and take him to a different state to live. He never was allowed to see his partner of 30 years.

Harsh,heartless, horrible people are everywhere.

[MsGuy]

Oh, barf.

"Adding further insult to grave injury, the county removed Clay from his home and confined him to a nursing home against his will."

 

In Ms., this would take two physicians' affidavits of need and a judge signing off after a full evidentiary hearing with mandatory independant legal representation for the individual in question. Not saying something like this couldn't happen, just that down here we tend to be a little more sceptical of social services (and 'well meaning' relatives too).

 

Hard to believe California empowers social services to haul adults off w/o court supervision, but then there's lots of stuff Cali does that my brain finds hard to encompass. There's a trade off here but personally I think it's better to let some people make do w/o needed help for a few days than to allow folks to be grabbed w/o some independant evaluation of necessity.

----

PK, I've seen several similar horror cases. Children can be especially viscious if there's money to be had. And it doesn't take much money to set them off. These stories make my skin crawl.

[JackTwist]

Is There More Than What Meets The Eye, Here?

 

I said incomplete, as in manipulated specifically to make people angry. That's just the kind of story that would get "all over the net" in a hurry.

 

I'd like to hear the full story before getting all rubbed up over it.

 

I agree, Deej. There surely must be some missing pieces to this sad puzzle. It just doesn't all add up for me. I'm glad Clay will get his day in court and the facts will hopefully come out...and still be in his favor.

[Guest Wetnwildbear]

Back to the Source

 

Seaboy, where did you get this story from? I'd like to follow up on it...

 

The Story was not carried by "The Press Democrat" rather it was posted in one of their online comment sections.

 

One of the other posters (sorry forgot which one) stated correctly that the case summary which Seaboy-Greg posted was taken from the website of the NLCR.

 

Below is a link to the actual complaint - This horror started in 2008 and is scheduled for trial in July 2010.

 

 

http://www.nclrights.org/site/DocServer/Greene_v_Sonoma_County.pdf?docID=7461

 

Full Case Synopsis Below - Sorry if this is a dupe

 

Greene v. County of Sonoma et al.

Clay and his partner of 20 years, Harold, lived in California. Clay and Harold made diligent efforts to protect their legal rights, and had their legal paperwork in place—wills, powers of attorney, and medical directives, all naming each other. Harold was 88 years old and in frail medical condition, but still living at home with Clay, 77, who was in good health.

One evening, Harold fell down the front steps of their home and was taken to the hospital. Based on their medical directives alone, Clay should have been consulted in Harold’s care from the first moment. Tragically, county and health care workers instead refused to allow Clay to see Harold in the hospital. The county then ultimately went one step further by isolating the couple from each other, placing the men in separate nursing homes.

Ignoring Clay’s significant role in Harold’s life, the county continued to treat Harold like he had no family and went to court seeking the power to make financial decisions on his behalf. Outrageously, the county represented to the judge that Clay was merely Harold’s “roommate.” The court denied their efforts, but did grant the county limited access to one of Harold’s bank accounts to pay for his care.

What happened next is even more chilling: without authority, without determining the value of Clay and Harold’s possessions accumulated over the course of their 20 years together or making any effort to determine which items belonged to whom, the county took everything Harold and Clay owned and auctioned off all of their belongings. Adding further insult to grave injury, the county removed Clay from his home and confined him to a nursing home against his will. The county workers then terminated Clay and Harold's lease and surrendered the home they had shared for many years to the landlord.

Three months after he was hospitalized, Harold died in the nursing home. Because of the county’s actions, Clay missed the final months he should have had with his partner of 20 years. Compounding this tragedy, Clay has literally nothing left of the home he had shared with Harold or the life he was living up until the day that Harold fell, because he has been unable to recover any of his property. The only memento Clay has is a photo album that Harold painstakingly put together for Clay during the last three months of his life.

With the help of a dedicated and persistent court-appointed attorney, Anne Dennis of Santa Rosa, Clay was finally released from the nursing home. Ms. Dennis, along with Stephen O'Neill and Margaret Flynn of Tarkington, O'Neill, Barrack & Chong, now represent Clay in a lawsuit against the county, the auction company, and the nursing home, with technical assistance from NCLR. A trial date has been set for July 16, 2010 in the Superior Court for the County of Sonoma.

[Guest OCBeachbody]

That is horrible. You'd think even the the Domestic Partner act in California some red flags would have shown up, especially since I think after 10 years of living together it would be considered communal property.

 

Whoever in that County authorized that whole fiasco need to be taken out of town on a rail and tarred and feathered. Just goes to show you in the end you can't trust the government. What an obscene use of power... the government wielded here. Not only did this guy lose his partner, but his possessions, and his dignity.... I hope he wins big.

 

This is one of the main reason gay marriage needs to pass..... stories like these need to be made public.

[rvwnsd]

...This is one of the main reason gay marriage needs to pass..... stories like these need to be made public.

 

This transcends gay marriage. What happened to the gentleman who fell could happen to anyone, gay or straight, single or married.

[+ deej]

This is one of the main reason gay marriage needs to pass..... stories like these need to be made public.

 

Gay marriage wouldn't help a damn thing here. You must have missed this detail:

 

"Adding further insult to grave injury, the county removed Clay from his home and confined him to a nursing home against his will."

 

Removing someone from his home against his will won't be helped by any damn marriage.

[MsGuy]

This case needs to be brought to the attention of the District Attorney's office. Public conservator's just don't take possession of over $200,000 worth of personal property w/o doing an inventory, much less dispose of it when their supervising court has specifically declined to give them the authority to do so. The conservatorship kicked off 6/08; Scull died about 3 months later; as of 3/10 the public conservator's office had still failed to make any accounting for what happened to his property.

 

This stinks of criminal conversion as much as hostility to gays.

[+ deej]

This stinks of criminal conversion as much as hostility to gays.

 

That's my read as well, but it still doesn't add up right. If the story, as we're reading it, is accurate then someone's head should roll. It's elder abuse on top of theft and illegal incarceration.

 

If the guy was completely barkey and declared incompetent, fine. I've seen how rapidly that can be accomplished. But the story has no mention of that. (And why is a lesbian group providing his legal defense?)

 

It bothers me that places reporting this story are cluck-clucking and giving it a straight pass-through without questioning some truly questionable bits.

[+ David-SF]

Update

 

http://www.ebar.com/news/article.php?sec=news&article=4725

 

Did Sonoma County officials separate an elderly gay couple against their will, sell off the men's property, and even take away their cats, as a lawsuit alleges? Or is the case about protecting one of the men from his abusive partner, as the county's lawyers contend in court papers?

It will be up to a jury to answer those questions when the lawsuit goes to trial in July. But the shocking allegations contained in the lawsuit raise troubling questions for elderly gay and straight couples alike who may think they have taken the necessary legal steps to protect one another only to find out otherwise.

"This case, as much as any other I have ever been involved in, illustrates that were it not for the fact, even in California, a state with more legal protections than any other state, we live in a culture that pervasively discriminates against LGBT people," said Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, which is assisting in the Sonoma litigation. "It treats our relationships as second class."

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Guerneville resident Clay Greene, 78, whose run-in with county officials began April 27, 2008 when his now deceased partner, Harold Scull, fell and injured himself at their Sebastopol home. According to Greene's suit, the 88-year-old Scull had been chronically ill and was showing signs of dementia and reduced mental capacity at the time of his accident.

As described in court papers by Greene's attorney, Anne Dennis, Scull had been drinking, grew angry, and tried to leave the couple's home "in a huff." He missed the front step and fell down. When Greene tried to help him up, Scull "was combative and insisted on being left alone."

Greene, however, called 911 and paramedics brought Scull to Kaiser Hospital in Santa Rosa. It would be the last time the two men would see each other.

Observing bruises on Scull's arms and face, hospital employees alerted county officials of suspected elder abuse, according to court papers, and the Public Conservator's office became involved in the case. Scull left the hospital after three weeks, spent some time at a rehabilitation facility and then moved into Hill House in Kenwood, where he remained until his death on August 13, 2008.

During that time the public conservator petitioned the courts for a temporary conservatorship of Scull's estate, listing Greene as his roommate rather than partner of 20 years. The two men were not registered as domestic partners but had designated each other beneficiaries in their wills and filed the necessary paperwork to allow them to make medical decisions on their behalf.

According to court papers, county employees went to the men's home and in front of Greene commented that the couples' belongings "will look great in my living room" and that "my wife will love this."

The county eventually sold off the men's property at auction and moved Greene into Agua Caliente Villas, an assisted living center in Sonoma, against his will, according to the lawsuit. He was kept from seeing or telephoning his partner and restricted from leaving his new residence.

"Clay Greene and his partner, before Harold died, were subjected to false imprisonment and being denied access to each other," said Kendell. "Other than a suitcase of his belongings and a photo book Harold made for him, he has nothing left of his former life."

Different picture

The county paints a different picture in a memorandum it filed with the superior court of Sonoma County this week. It alleges that when Scull was admitted to the hospital, he told Kaiser staffers that Greene had inflicted the injuries on him.

"The county's dealings with these men have noting to do with the fact they are gay or a same-sex couple. The county treats domestic violence the same, regardless of the gender, and takes domestic violence very seriously," said Greg Spaulding, the county's outside legal counsel. "The facts that have been reported by the other side are wrong."

The county contends that an investigation by the public guardian found that Scull required assistance with his personal and medical needs as well as his financial affairs, and that he "was afraid of" Greene and "did not want to return to the home he shared with" him.

The county also contends Scull "voluntarily nominated" the public guardian to oversee his financial affairs and that Greene was told to separate his belongings from Scull's before the sale of his estate.

"The main thing is the county of Sonoma became involved with Mr. Greene and Mr. Scull as a result of Mr. Scull being hospitalized and reporting Mr. Greene had abused him. We responded to a domestic violence case and that is how we got involved," Spaulding said. "The public guardian who became involved with Mr. Scull and started procedures to get him into a safe living environment had been told by Mr. Scull that Mr. Greene hit him."

The Bay Area Reporter's request to speak with Greene was not granted by press time. But in an interview he gave this week to the Santa Rosa Press Democrat , he lashed out at how county officials treated him.

"They stole my furniture, put me in a retirement home and told me to shut up," he told the paper. "They took my cats. They took everything."

Kendell said the county's claims that it acted in order to protect Scull from being abused by his partner "are a total dodge."

"When the incident occurred and the ambulance arrived Harold was furious and accused Clay of pushing him because he was angry and embarrassed. He immediately recanted and the police investigated and found no abuse," wrote Kendell in an e-mail to the B.A.R. responding to the county's claims. "Nevertheless, the county proceeded to loot the entire estate, keep Clay from Harold, place Clay against his will in a nursing home and is now denying any wrongdoing."

No matter the outcome of the lawsuit, Greene's and Scull's story has outraged LGBT people in the Bay Area and nationally. Carol Russell, the out lesbian mayor of Cloverdale in northern Sonoma County, said she has been inundated with calls from upset friends and constituents, both gay and straight, worried the same thing could happen to them.

"The kind of reaction I am seeing is this is a gay bashing. I am concerned we not instantly assume that is the case until we get the facts," said Russell. "If the facts indicate anything, and I mean anything, from that auction to the way these men were treated then I think the whole county needs to get together and have a discussion on not just gay elderly couples but how all elderly couples are treated. What would have happened if this were a man and a woman?"

Russell added that Greene's losing all of his property is reason enough for there to be a public accounting of how that could occur.

"This merits very serious investigation. I don't care if the only thing that happened is someone's personal property was sold, that is serious enough," said Russell. "We need to find out the truth here so the lessons we need to learn and the things that need to be corrected, we correct and find out what went wrong."

[alanalt]

Thanks David, for providing access to an account that is a little more balanced. I can pity the jurors who will have the task of uncovering what really happened based on such completely divergent accounts being offered by each side. I wish them luck, they're gonna need it...

 

Alan