In re Cochran

Clear and convincing evidence supported the probate court's finding that the ward lacked sufficient capacity to make responsible decisions concerning the management of her property, where the evidence established that the ward suffered from cognitive loss that led her to incur significant financial losses as she repeatedly fell victim to fraudulent lottery schemes.

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The Department of Human Services filed a petition for the appointment of a conservator to manage the property and financial affairs of Sara Cochran, then 79 years of age. Following an evidentiary hearing, the probate court granted the petition, and Cochran now appeals. Cochran contends that the evidence in the record is insufficient to sustain the judgment below, that the probate court should have dismissed the petition for failure to state a claim and want of probable cause, and that the affidavit that accompanied the petition was inadequate. We find no error and affirm. The evidence shows that, beginning in 2007, the Department began to receive reports that Cochran was a victim of financial exploitation. It opened an investigation, and a case worker met with and interviewed Cochran. The investigation revealed that Cochran had spent at least $100,000 on various lotteries and sweepstakes, including foreign lotteries,1 and Cochran eventually acknowledged to the case worker that she might have been “scammed” in connection with some of these lotteries. After the Department contacted her family, however, it closed its investigation, apparently to give her family an opportunity to deal with the problem.

Some of Cochran’s family later filed, and the probate court granted, an emergency petition for the appointment of a conservator to manage her property. The probate court appointed Althea Caces as an emergency conservator. Ms. Caces discovered “multiple transactions in which Cochran and her husband had repeatedly made the same mistake and fraudulently been induced to send out money,” and she determined that $140,000 had been disbursed by Cochran and her husband under suspicious circumstances in the preceding year. Ms. Caces expressed concern that, if Cochran and her husband continued spending money on lotteries and sweepstakes at the same rate, their estate would “be exhausted within a couple of years.”

In re Cochran

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