Litigation

March 16, 2019

Estates Under Attack: A Growing Trend

So you’ve got your house in order, estate plan complete and signed, wishes documented. What are the chances of your Will being challenged?

From our experience, the chances are greater than before.

Will contests

Will contests, when one or more parties challenge a Last Will & Testament, are a direct attack in probate court against one’s estate plan. There is a growing trend however, of attacks against estate plans that take place outside of probate court.

We’ve been seeing a marked increase in people challenging Continue reading

November 30, 2018

Trouble With an Untrustworthy Trustee?

by Czepiga Daly Pope & Perri LLC

Modern law offers a variety of ways for individuals to manage, distribute, and protect their property, whether it be for their own benefit or for that of a loved one. A well-known, and yet seemingly complex, mechanism for doing so is a Trust. But what does this mean for you, the beneficiary?

Do you think you are a beneficiary of a trust but have never been contacted by the trustee?

Have you ever had reason to believe that a trustee is mismanaging or not being truthful about trust assets?

June 29, 2018

The One Thing You Should Know About Nursing Home Evictions

by Czepiga Daly Pope & Perri LLC

By Attorney Carmine Perri

Going to a nursing home is hard enough, imagine being evicted? Good news. There are laws in place to prevent that from happening.

Within a nursing home, just like any other place you call home, you are entitled to certain rights. These rights include not being able to be evicted for any reason beyond the six listed in the United States’ Code:

The discharge is necessary for the resident’s welfare and his or her needs cannot be met in the facility.
The resident’s health has improved and no longer needs the facility’s services.
The resident is endangering the safety of others.
The resident is endangering the health of others.
The resident has failed to pay for (or to have paid under Medicare or Medicaid) a stay at the facility.
The facility ceases to operate.

February 23, 2018

Carmine Perri Wins Connecticut Supreme Court Case Protecting Spousal Support

by Czepiga Daly Pope & Perri LLC

In a decision released February 1, 2018, the Connecticut Supreme Court found in favor of the plaintiffs, represented by one of our principals Carmine Perri, who had challenged the Commissioner of Social Services over a determination from the Department of Social Services (DSS) regarding whether or not a preexisting spousal support order rendered by the Probate Court was binding on DSS.

The plaintiffs in the case were a father and his daughter; the daughter was acting in her capacity as conservator for her father and executrix of her father’s wife’s estate. Shortly after her father’s wife was discharged from a medical facility to a skilled nursing facility, the conservator filed an application in the Probate Court seeking an order of spousal support for her father. The Probate Court approved the application thereby allowing the conservator to transfer the wife’s assets to the husband and ordered the conservator to pay the wife’s income to her father as monthly spousal support.

Less than a month after the Probate Court issued its decree, a Title XIX (Medicaid) application was filed with DSS on the wife’s behalf. While DSS granted the application, it did not factor the previously existing Probate Court order when calculating how much money could be allocated to the support of the husband; in short, DSS ignored the Probate Court order when arriving at its calculation of spousal support.