Month: May 2018

Elder abuse is not substantiated

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

Philip C. Marshal is an elder justice advocate and founder of Beyond Brooke. The remarks below were prepared for Our Aging Brains: Decision-making, Fraud, and Undue Influence, part of the Project on Law and Applied Neuroscience at Harvard Law School; April 27, 2018. The complete version of Decision-making, fraud, and undue influence—illustrated through the lens of the Brooke Astor story was published April 28, 2018 in Medium.

The meaning of elder abuse remains misunderstood, even by professionals.

I know—from hard-learned experience—when I, and many others, worked to save my grandmother from abuse by my father.

In a December 2006 court decision, my grandmother’s guardianship judge authorized reimbursement of my legal fees for bringing a guardianship petition for my grandmother, stating, “Although this matter voluntarily settled before the hearing, I find the petitioner Philip Marshall was the prevailing party…”

But the judge also decided to award my father a portion of his legal fees, writing, “I make this ruling based on the conclusion of the court evaluator that the allegations in the petition regarding Mrs. Astor’s medical and dental care, and the other allegations of intentional elder abuse by the Marshalls, were not substantiated.” [italics added]

Decision—In the Matter of the Application of Philip Marshall for the appointment of a Guardian for the Person and Property for Brooke Astor, an Alleged Incapacitated Person. Judge John A. Stackhouse, Supreme Court of the State of New York. December 4, 2006 Read More

2018 Petrie-Flom Center Annual Conference: Beyond Disadvantage: Disability, Law, and Bioethics

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

2018 Petrie-Flom Center Annual Conference: Beyond Disadvantage: Disability, Law, and Bioethics
June 1, 2018 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Wasserstein Hall, Milstein East ABC (2036)
Harvard Law School, 1585 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA

“Congress acknowledged that society’s accumulated myths and fears about disability and disease are as handicapping as are the physical limitations that flow from actual impairment.” Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., School Bd. of Nassau, Fl. v. Arline, 480 U.S. 273 (1987).

The Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School is pleased to announce plans for our 2018 annual conference, entitled: “Beyond Disadvantage: Disability, Law, and Bioethics.” This year’s conference is organized in collaboration with the Harvard Law School Project on Disability.

Conference Description

Historically and across societies people with disabilities have been stigmatized and excluded from social opportunities on a variety of culturally specific grounds. These justifications include assertions that people with disabilities are biologically defective, less than capable, costly, suffering, or fundamentally inappropriate for social inclusion. Rethinking the idea of disability so as to detach being disabled from inescapable disadvantage has been considered a key to twenty-first century reconstruction of how disablement is best understood.

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