In re Conservatorship of Groves

• Decision Date: 11 February 2003
• Citation: 109 S.W.3d 317
• Parties: In the Matter of the CONSERVATORSHIP OF Ellen P. GROVES.
• Court: Tennessee Court of Appeals

109 S.W.3d 317

In the Matter of the CONSERVATORSHIP OF Ellen P. GROVES.

Court of Appeals of Tennessee, at Nashville.

November 8, 2000 Session.

February 11, 2003.

Published Pursuant to Tenn Ct. App. R. 11.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Landon W. Meadow and Bruce A. Kennedy, Clarksville, Tennessee, for the appellant, Glendon P. Groves.

Thomas R. Meeks, Clarksville, Tennessee, for the appellees, Ellen P. Groves and Cheryl Phillips Travis.

OPINION

WILLIAM C. KOCH, JR., J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which BEN H. CANTRELL, P.J., M.S., and PATRICIA J. COTTRELL, J., joined.

This appeal involves the conservatorship of an elderly widow. Both the widow's brother-in-law and a niece filed petitions in the Chancery Court for Montgomery County requesting to be appointed her conservator. Following a bench trial, the trial court determined that the widow was "competent" and, therefore, dismissed both conservatorship petitions. The trial court also disapproved the brother-in-law's accounting of his expenditures on the widow's behalf and directed the brother-in-law and his wife to return the widow's real and personal property to her. On this appeal, the widow's brother-in-law asserts that the trial court erred (1) by refusing to appoint him conservator, (2) by refusing to approve reimbursing him for his expenses in caring for his sister-in-law, and (3) by directing him to return his sister-in-law's real and personal property. We have determined that the evidence preponderates against the trial court's conclusions that the widow is not disabled and that she does not need a conservator. However, we have also determined that the trial court properly declined to reimburse the widow's brother-in-law for his expenses in caring for her and properly ordered him to return her real and personal property.

I.

Ellen Phillips Groves is currently eighty-eight years old. She was born in December 1914 and was one of twelve children. In 1936 she married Reilous Clifton Groves ("R. C. Groves"), and the couple settled in Cheatham County. They had no children. According to one of Ms. Groves's nieces, Ms. Groves was a virtual slave to her husband during their marriage and "had no happy life whatsoever." During the 1990s, as age and frailty pursued them, Ellen and R.C. Groves began to rely more and more on help and support of family members and friends to enable them to remain in their home.

During their lengthy marriage, R.C. Groves and Ellen Groves acquired three tracts of real property in Cheatham County valued at between $60,000 and $65,000. Their home, an old grocery store they operated in the 1940s and 1950s, and R.C. Groves's garage were located on this property. They also accumulated over $118,000 in liquid assets,¹ Mr. Groves's mechanic's tools and guns, home furnishings, and a collection of old coins having a face value of $2,817.34.

R.C. Groves broke three ribs when he fell out of bed on March 16, 1994. His brother, Glendon Groves, drove him to the emergency room of a hospital in Dickson where he was treated and released the same day. He was returned to the hospital by ambulance on March 20, 1994, and again on March 29, 1994. While still hospitalized in Dickson, R.C. Groves must have learned that he was facing a lengthy convalescence and that he might never be able to return home. Accordingly, he and his brother devised a plan to preserve R.C. Groves's financial resources from being depleted by medical expenses.

According to Glendon Groves, R.C. Groves decided to give him the $100,000 certificate of deposit in return for his assurance that he would take care of R.C. Groves and Ellen Groves for the rest of their lives. On the evening of April 3, 1994, Glendon Groves asked Donna Smith, one of his brother's neighbors who had been chauffeuring Ms. Groves to and from the hospital, to drive Ms. Groves to the Dickson branch of the People's Bank on their way to the hospital. The following morning, Ms. Smith drove Ms. Groves to the bank where Ms. Groves told a bank employee that she wished to redeem their certificate of deposit. Because the certificate of deposit had not yet expired, the bank employee deducted the penalty for early withdrawal and gave Ms. Groves a cashier's check for $97,873.29 made payable to her. After driving Ms. Groves to the hospital to visit her husband, Ms. Smith drove Ms. Groves to Glendon Groves's flea market, Flea World, and observed her handing the cashier's check to Glendon Groves.

On April 6, 1994, R.C. Groves was moved from the hospital in Dickson to the Palmyra Nursing Home in Montgomery County. On the same day, both he and Ms. Groves executed general powers of attorney granting Glendon Groves authority to act on their behalf with regard to all financial matters. Around this same time, Glendon Groves asked Ms. Smith to drive Ms. Groves to the local office of the Department of Human Services to apply for food stamps, Medicaid, and TennCare. Ms. Groves was approved for these benefits, and R.C. Groves also applied for and became eligible to receive TennCare benefits on May 1, 1994.²

R.C. Groves was somewhat eccentric about his possessions. Before he entered the nursing home, he asked Ms. Smith to bring him the old coins and folding money he kept in his house. She complied, and, after looking through it, R.C. Groves asked Ms. Smith to hide the money, $18,258 in bills and $2,817.34 in old coins, in a space underneath the refrigerator in his house. Ms. Smith complied.

Glendon Groves did not cash Ms. Groves's $97,873.29 cashier's check immediately. He held it until March 8, 1995, when he exchanged it at the Farmers and Merchants Bank in Clarksville for a $97,873.29 cashier's check made payable to him. Even after this transaction, he held the cashier's check without depositing it in the bank because he desired to avoid paying tax. Even though he insisted that R.C. and Ellen Groves had given him the money to "do whatever you want to with it," he stated that he intended to use the money to take care of R.C. and Ellen Groves and that he had "put it [the money] back in case I needed it."

R.C. Groves became seriously ill in late September 1995 and was hospitalized in the intensive care unit. On October 1, 1995, Ms. Smith, concerned that the money under the Groves's refrigerator would disappear, got permission from Ellen Groves to retrieve the money and take it home for safekeeping. R.C. Groves died two days later on October 3, 1995. One week later, Glendon Groves paid Buckner Funeral Home $7,384.21 for his brother's funeral by cashing the $97,873.29 cashier's check, keeping $7,384.21, and obtaining another cashier's check for $90,489.08.

Following R.C. Groves's death, Glendon Groves and his wife, Wilmuth, discovered that the money R.C. Groves had kept in his house was missing and planted the seeds in Ellen Groves's mind that Ms. Smith had stolen it. On October 11, 1995, after Ms. Groves accused her of stealing the money, Ms. Smith carefully inventoried and counted the folding money and coins and returned $21,075.34 to Ms. Groves.³ According to Glendon Groves, Ms. Groves gave him the money outright on October 11 or 12, 1995. He converted the coins to folding money and held the funds until the trial court ordered him to deposit them in the bank.

Ellen Groves continued to live in her house in Charlotte after her husband died. As time went by she became increasingly less able to care for herself. She came to rely more heavily on Glendon and Wilmuth Groves. Other family members and her friends and neighbors had not lost interest in her, but Glendon and Wilmuth Groves gave them the impression that they were not needed or welcome at Ellen Groves's house. Ms. Groves seemed to have turned against many of her family and neighbors, and so many of them decided to stay away, believing that she had been "brainwashed" by Glendon Groves and his wife. While she continued to live in her home, Ms. Groves, with the assistance of Glendon Groves's lawyer, prepared a new will that left the bulk of her estate to Mr. Groves and his wife.

In early September 1997, Ms. Groves fell and fractured her spine. She underwent surgery and was hospitalized for approximately two weeks. The injury undermined Ms. Groves's ability to continue living independently in her own house. On September 16, 1997, she moved in with Glendon and Wilmuth Groves who converted one of their children's bedrooms for her use. At this point, Ms. Groves relied completely on Glendon and Wilmuth Groves for her meals, lodging, and care. For their part, Glendon and Wilmuth Groves discouraged visits by family members and friends by telling them when they inquired that Ms. Groves was not up to visiting with anyone.

According to Glendon Groves, Ms. Groves decided to give him her real property after she had been living in his house for approximately three months. Therefore, Glendon Groves asked his lawyer to prepare two quitclaim deeds conveying the three tracts of real property to Glendon and Wilmuth Groves. The lawyer brought the deeds to Glendon Groves's house on December 8, 1997, and Ms. Groves signed them while sitting in a rocking chair in Glendon Groves's living room.

Ms. Groves's stay with Glendon and Wilmuth Groves was short-lived. Their relationship became strained after Ms. Groves chanced upon their daughter kissing her boyfriend at the bottom of the stairs. In addition, Ms. Groves became convinced that Wilmuth Groves was stealing her money and other personal belongings. Accordingly, Glendon and Wilmuth Groves decided to place Ms. Groves in a nursing home. They reported to Dr. David L. Gullett, an internist in Clarksville, that Ms. Groves was getting out of their home and wandering off and that she was hostile and paranoid at times. Dr. Gullett concurred that Ms. Groves should be placed in a nursing home, and so on February 23, 1998, Ms. Groves was moved to the Clarksville...