(Source: MIRS.news, Published 09/18/2024) New Senate bills give Michigan seniors and "vulnerable adults," who are unable to live on their own, access to a restraining order system under which they could petition against people they fear won't leave their property, or who have exploited them financially or tampered with their care.
Wednesday, the Senate Civil Rights, Judiciary and Public Safety Committee took testimony on SB 922, SB 923, SB 924 and SB 925, respectively by Sens. Veronica Klinefelt (D-Eastpointe), Sarah Anthony (D-Lansing), Kevin Hertel (D-St. Clair Shores) and Jeff Irwin (D-Ann Arbor).
The legislation sets up an elder and vulnerable adult personal protection order (PPO), which can be petitioned for in a circuit court. It would apply to adults who are at least 60 years old, as well as any adult requiring supervision due to developmental disabilities, mental illnesses or physical impairments.
The court would be expected to issue one of these PPOs if there was reasonable cause to believe the person to be restrained could enter onto or refuse to leave the petitioner's property. It could also be issued if the person seemed capable of threatening to withhold their access to food, medication, communication technology, sanitary items or other "basic amenities."
Other reasons for one of these PPOs to be issued would include the likeliness of that person using derogatory or inappropriate language against the petitioner, or the probability of them physically injuring or sexually abusing the petitioner.
In instances where the petitioner seeks a PPO following financial exploitation, the court could award the petitioner up to $7,000 for actual damages or to cover actual attorney costs.
Anthony described how her legislation, SB 923, gives the "embezzlement from a vulnerable adult" a 10-year Statute of Limitation (SOL) to have losses recovered.
Hertel added that his SB 924 ensures that if someone continues a financial criminal scheme impacting a vulnerable adult after they've died, the offender could still be prosecuted.
"Current law makes it illegal to use or acquire a vulnerable adult's money or property through deceitful or fraudulent methods," Hertel said. "And my bill simply would extend these protections if a criminal scheme continues after the vulnerable adult's death. The offender could face penalties as if the vulnerable adult were still alive."
Following today's hearing, which ran for about 45 minutes, MIRS spoke with one of the testifiers, Megan Reynolds, a Ypsilanti-based family law attorney for the Michigan Poverty Law Program.
At the beginning of her legal career, Reynolds was a research division attorney for the Michigan Court of Appeals.
When it comes to seniors petitioning the PPOs under the bills, Reynolds said they could apply to any elderly person, even if they aren't frail, who's allowed someone to reside in their home or to assist with their affairs, particularly in a case where that person has become violent or exploitive.
In Reynolds' own family, her grandmother allowed her youngest adult son to reside in her home after her husband died. Before he died, she said her grandfather was the one keeping "limits around his outbursts and his violence."
Her uncle "began to isolate my grandmother from the other children."
"At that point in time, there was nothing like this available, but it is the kind of thing that happens. The other siblings want to help," she said. "But it can be very difficult without an order of the court to really confront the person who's being assaulted, and tell them that this is being seen, and that the system is willing to stop this from continuing."
One of Reynolds' aunts brought the grandmother into her home, and for years the uncle has possessed the home, "and, unfortunately, the house just continued to deteriorate." She said her grandmother felt it was more important to keep her youngest child housed.
"It's not always going to be the case that the best thing to do is to use this order to remove someone from the home, but this tool would empower the senior to decide for themselves what they want," she said. "If they're unsafe in their own home, and they don't have someone else that can help them with an alternate place to stay, this can actually make their home safe for them again."
She said the current state of restraining orders helps victims of intimate partner violence, sexual assault and stalking.
The PPOs provided in the bills are "really an act of translation to tailor this availability to relationships we know become violent that are not intimate partner violence," she said.
In the case of financial exploitation, Reynolds suggested today's bills could lift the waiting periods for pursuing such issues in the current criminal justice system. She described an elderly person being unable to retrieve their debit card when they want to distance themselves from someone they authorized to make purchases with it.
She said if the senior wants to "take back control and limit them from continuing to take advantage of you, then this would be a civil order that would get all of that done without having to wait on a criminal justice response."
According to national March 2024 data by the AARP, 90 percent of elder abuse cases occur in the victim's residential homes and one in 24 cases of elder abuse are reported to the authorities. The AARP also reported that 60% of elder abusers are family members, majorly spouses and adult children.
