A new spotlight on the tutelage of Britney Spears, who has her legion of fans calling for reforms, prompted California lawmakers to consider changes that could affect the pop star’s protracted lawsuit in Los Angeles.
High-profile guardianship has been the focus of intense speculation since Spears was placed under the legal agreement 13 years ago, but public scrutiny of court-ordered guardianship has exploded with the #FreeBritney movement supported by fans who have become activists and the recent New York Times Documentary “Framing Britney Spears”.
The documentary, released in February, raised questions about how the guardianship system worked in the case of the star, highlighting how Spears was deprived of decisions about her earnings and daily life, even while she continued to perform and earn millions. Now, proposals in the California Legislature are aimed at strengthening conservatory requirements, requiring more supervision and training of someone else’s caregivers and finances, and implementing additional conditions to safeguard conservatives like Spears.
Guardianship is a legal arrangement established by a court with the aim of protecting those who cannot take care of themselves. Spears, 39, was first placed under guardianship in 2008, after her public disclosure the previous year, when a court appointed his father, James “Jaime” Spears and lawyer Andrew Wallet, who managed his financial assets, to oversee his business. Wallet resigned in 2019 and the singer is currently trying to remove her father as her conservative. Jaime Spears’ lawyers said he had always acted in his daughter’s best interest.
Representative Evan Low (D-San Jose) said that the issues raised in “Facing Britney Spears” highlighted “some of the worst aspects of the system and the fact that it does not always protect individuals like her”.
“We are trying to pull the curtain on conservatories in California,” said Low. “We know that abuse is taking place.”
One problem, said Low, is the lack of training and supervision of conservatives who are not licensed professionals. Courts will often appoint a family member to act on behalf of a person who considers that he or she is no longer able to take care of herself. Low’s Assembly bill 1194 requires that anyone appointed as a conservative who is not a licensed professional receive 10 hours of training in financial abuse. Non-professional conservatives, like Spears’s father, would also be required to register with the state’s supervisory agency, the Professional Fiduciaries Bureau. This oversight would only apply to properties valued at $ 1 million or more, with Low’s office saying that this limit will be added in the next amendments to the bill.
If a court decides that a conservative has not acted in a client’s best interest, the trust agency would be required to suspend or revoke that person’s license or registration and they could face a civil fine of up to $ 50,000 payable to the conservate’s estate.
AB 1194 also eliminates the discretion of a court when deciding whether a conservative can refer or hire any business entity in which he has a financial interest to work on behalf of the property he is supervising. In addition, the bill requires that a person’s primary care physician’s medical reports be considered by a court when making decisions about a person’s mental ability. It is not clear whether any of these elements of the project would have an impact on Spears’ guardianship.
Low said that while the momentum behind the legislation was the case for Spears, he hopes his project will lead to broader reforms.
“There are a lot of people who are elderly or vulnerable in other ways and are being taken advantage of,” said Low. “We want to ensure that we are taking care of those who are unable to take care of themselves.”
Senate Ben Allen’s bill 724 of the Senate would ensure that a person in custody or someone who supposedly needed guardianship could choose their own lawyer, even if that person’s ability to make sound decisions is in question.
Adam Streisand, a renowned lawyer Spears spoke with when he considered challenging his guardianship in 2008, said the singer was barred from hiring him because of an undisclosed medical report saying she was mentally unable to make that decision. Instead, Spears was forced to obtain a court-appointed lawyer.
Allen presented his project in response to concerns raised in the documentary, his spokeswoman said.
“When someone wants to limit Californians’ civil and personal liberties through guardianship, proposed conservatives should have the right to select a lawyer of their own choice to defend them in court,” Allen said in a statement. “Why shouldn’t the same rights and due process that we guarantee criminal defendants also be given to those who are retained?”
Another bill, SB 602, by Senator John Laird (D-Santa Cruz), would reduce the maximum period of time between judicial reviews of conservatories every 18 months, instead of every two years. This potential change was recommended by the state Judicial Council in 2008, said Laird’s office. A spokesman noted that Spears’ documentary raised long-standing questions about potential abuses in the guardianship system.
But Lisa MacCarley, a longtime conservative lawyer in Los Angeles County, said the reforms proposed by lawmakers are “well-intentioned, but are missing the point.” She said the necessary revisions are in court, where court-appointed judges, commissioners and lawyers have created policies and procedures that are inconsistent with California law and the state constitution.
For example, in the case of Spears, a judge appointed attorney Samuel Ingham III to represent her on the same day that the guardianship was filed, which MacCarley said was highly irregular. Court records show that a judge denied Spears’ request to hire his own lawyer and instead approved Ingham to receive payments of up to $ 10,000 a week from the singer’s estate. MacCarley called this “a flagrant violation of Mrs. Spears’ constitutional rights to be represented by a lawyer of her choice.”
“All of this is inconsistent with the sacred rights granted to people who face guardianship,” said MacCarley.
Focusing on a person’s predicament, health care services attorney Bertha Sanchez Hayden said the reforms focus on money management, rather than ensuring that those placed in care are well taken care of.
“Constant reforms and spotlight are important,” said Sanchez Hayden, attorney director for legal services at the legal aid organization Bet Tzedek in Los Angeles and a member of the state’s Professional Fiduciary Advisory Committee. “But these accounts seem to speak only of a specific problem, without looking at [conservatorships] holistically. “
She said there are abuses in the system that need to be addressed, but that cannot be done with a focus on a high profile case. A conservative who fails to fulfill his duties, such as ensuring that a person has adequate housing or can go to the doctor, is just as damaging as a conservative who commits financial abuse, said Sanchez Hayden.
She said she worries about the stigma of conservatives due to the Spears case, when the system is vital to others, like a father whose seriously disabled son becomes an adult in the eyes of the law, but is unable to make decisions for himself. .
“We can’t rush to fix an injury,” said Sanchez Hayden. “There is no standard solution.”