Uniform Adult Guardianship and Protective Proceeding Jurisdiction Act (UAGPPJA) – Arizona Jurisdiction / Transfer Issue - Example Three

The American Bar Association Commission on Law and Aging compiled and published in June 2009 a list of stories it purports to support the need for national passage of the UAGPPJA.  See my post from January 25, 2010 for an introduction of the Act.

An issue which will arise more frequently as the Baby Boomer population ages is one where both parents have dementia and are living in a nursing home in one state and there are no family members that are close by who are either willing or able to check in on the parents.  In this case, an adult child and her family may want to move her parents from the first nursing home in her parent’s home state to a nursing home in the state where the daughter lives that is close to her.  What happens if the daughter cannot get her parents to voluntarily agree to move?

Under the Uniform Adult Guardianship and Protective Proceeding Jurisdiction Act, the daughter could file for guardianship in the Probate Court of the home state.  The parents would have the opportunity to object to the petitioned for guardianship and have access to evidence and contacts in the home state.  If the daughter has success with her petition to be appointed guardian, the Act provides procedures for the second state to recognize the legal authority granted to her while continuing to give the parents the right to object to the move into the second state.  In this scenario, there would be order to the process which everyone could agree to.

The Uniform Adult Guardianship and Protective Proceeding Jurisdiction Act purports to give both order to the legal procedures and cost-saving measures for both the family and the courts.  Arizona should give thoughtful consideration to adopting this Act either in whole or in part as it is being adopted throughout the country.  Arizona’s population is made up of people who have generally moved to Arizona from elsewhere.  It does not hold true that the entire family moved to the State of Arizona altogether, therefore, this set of facts can be anticipated to occur fairly often with Arizona being either the home state of the second state.