ADA as a vehicle to address the miscriminatory and miscreant actions affecting the elderly

Tim's idea that ADA might apply and using ADA as a vehicle to address the miscriminatory and miscreant actions affecting the elderly by certain guardians (including GALs) is not only interesting but viable. The Courts are a public facility and when we have GALs such as appear in the Sykes case who do not report the plenary guardian's admissions of neglect and who have acted as is reported - they are clearly preventing Mary Sykes because of her disablility (old age) from enjoying the statutory and constitutional benefit to which she is entitled. (The allegedly neglectful plenary guardian is also culpable). The Court in ignoring the disabled persons petition for a protective order against the person who later was wrongfully appointed as plenary guardian also shares some guilt.


Tim is really sharp! I would have wandered around in the dark for a century before I recognized the viability of ADA. It took quite a bit of though on my part to get a glimmer of the applicability. Tim's out of the box thinking appears to open up an entirely new avenue to attack the 'clout' polluted system that has allowed court appointed individuals to prey on the most helpless amongst us. Mr. Stern's constant fight to keep Mary Sykes from having an attorney is quite similar to preventing access to a restaurant, a bathroom, etc. Without an attorney Mary is effective barred from obtaining equal protection of the law in the Courthouse, and without an attorney Mary has no remedy when Mr. Shmiedel informs the Court that Mary by being segregrated and isolated from any stimulation and all the activites that made her life is "making wonderful progress!' Indeed, the isolation was reasonably calculated to destroy Mary Sykes' 'will to live' so that almost a million dollars in uninventoried assets could disappear in the pockets of the plenary guardian.

Following the ADA mandate - Mary should have an attorney, and this denial is an ADA violation s it denies her access to the Courts

Ken Ditkowsky

www.ditkowskylawoffice.com