Article 17-A of the Surrogate’s Court Procedure Act (SCPA), as currently enacted, permits the surrogate to appoint a guardian of the person or property, or both, for individuals who are mentally retarded1 and individuals with a developmental disability. In most cases, Article 17-A is used to ensure long-term guardianship of persons who never were and never will be able to care for themselves. It permits their parents, when the disabled persons become adults, to serve as their legal guardians while the parents live and appoint successors when the parents are gone.2
When it appears to the satisfaction of the court that a person is an individual with a developmental disability, the court is authorized to appoint a guardian if it is in the “best interest” of such a person. A mentally retarded person or an individual with an intellectual disability is a person incapable of managing their affairs or making decisions on their own behalf. An individual with a developmental disability is a person having an impaired ability to understand and appreciate the consequences of decisions on their own behalf, which results in such persons being incapable of managing their affairs.
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