After her 2nd psychiatric hold back in 2008, a California court awarded petitioner, Jamie Spears, as emergency temporary conservator responsible to make health care and financial decisions for his daughter Britney. More than 12 years later after working on rehabilitating her mental health, Britney’s right to make legal decisions about her life remains awkwardly under the control of someone other than herself.
A CA adult conservatorship is akin to a FL adult guardianship in which a petitioner asks the probate court to restrict and remove the legal rights of a Ward, i.e. an incapacitated person with diminished mental capacity, mental disabilities or on set dementia, who is considered a danger to themselves or deemed incapable of making legal decisions for himself/herself. In FL, the petitioner on behalf of an adult Ward can request the Court award either a (i) plenary guardianship to exercise all delegable legal rights and powers of the Ward after the court makes a finding of the Ward’s incapacity, or (ii) limited guardianship if the court finds the Ward lacks the capacity to do some, but not all, of the tasks necessary to care for his or her person or property.
In Britney’s case, her father, petitioned the Court and was appointed control over everything from negotiating Britney’s business opportunities to restricting her dating, diet and visitors/relationships, i.e. all while being compensated to manage her business interests and financial assets. According to Forbes, while Britney received a modest monthly stipend over the past 12 years and working to improve her net worth over $54MiL, Mr. Spears earned more than $5 million in conservator compensation from Britney including an $160K annual salary, rent expense reimbursement for his office and a 1.5% share of gross revenues from Britney’s performances and merchandise from her Las Vegas residency. Because Britney has been heavily medicated during the conservatorship at her father’s request, one can certainly question whether his role as conservator was being abused.
There is no short term answer in sight as the CA court extended Britney’s conservatorship through Aug. 22 while all parties try to figure out what is best for Britney. What is clear is that Britney’s conservatorship removing her right to parent, her right to work/not to work and her right to bodily autonomy has been a public policy fail. If she can demonstrate rehabilitated mental capacity, the bounds of the conservatorship should be alleviated or terminated and Britney given back some level of authority and control over her own personal and financial life.
Click here to learn more.
