Published: May 08, 2008 03:00 pm         

Judge sets aside orders

Court ruling releases woman from administrator’s control

JOPLIN, Mo. — Emma France can go back to California after David Mouton, Jasper County probate judge, on Wednesday set aside orders that made the 95-year-old former Carthage resident a ward of Rita Hunter, the county public administrator.

Mouton made the ruling based on attorneys’ arguments and without hearing testimony from France or from Hunter during a two-hour hearing in the Jasper County Courts Building in Joplin.

R. Lynn Myers, France’s attorney, contended that orders making France a ward of the county were void because France was not allowed to appear or speak at the hearing in which the guardianship was ordered, and because her daughter or other relatives were not notified of the court proceeding in which she was put under county control.

Matthew Miller, attorney for Hunter, said motions on behalf of France should be rejected because they should have been filed within 60 days of the May 16, 2007, hearing that made her a ward of the county. He said France instead should have filed to terminate guardianship, or Delores Forste, France’s daughter, should have filed to intervene or to become her mother’s guardian.

Forste was in the courtroom Wednesday along with her husband, Steve Forste, and other relatives. Kidnapping charges were filed against the couple after they took France, at her request, home with them to Needles, Calif., last year. Delores Forste, 67, was arrested in November at her home and spent two weeks in jail in California before being brought to Jasper County to face charges. The county in February deferred prosecution on the kidnapping charges. Hunter said her office filed a report to seek the kidnapping charges, saying the two “abducted” France by taking her from the county.

France has maintained throughout the dispute that her daughter and son-in-law acted at her request in taking her with them to live in California.

The judge’s ruling left the county with the option of filing an amended order to make France a ward of the administrator. Miller said his client “will consider that,” saying Hunter was “just looking out for her (France’s) best interests.”

He said he and his client are looking forward to the federal case, referring to lawsuits France and Forste have filed against Hunter and her attorney John Podleski. The lawsuits seek damages, and contend that actions that made France a ward of the county violated her rights because, among other things, France was not allowed to attend the hearing and her family was not given notice of the hearing.

In his arguments Wednesday, Myers noted that Shannon McKinney, France’s court-appointed attorney, said her client wanted to be at the guardianship hearing.

“She was entitled to be there,” he said. “Due process was not met as regard to her rights.”

He said the law also requires family members to be named and given notice of the hearing, which did not happen.

Miller argued that the motions asking that the guardianship orders be set aside “were not timely filed” because they did not meet the 60-day deadline set out in the statute. He said France and Forste had opportunities earlier to file those motions.

He said France was provided with notice of the guardianship hearing and agreed to her representation by McKinney. He said McKinney decided it was not in France’s best interest to be at the hearing.

“The court should allow Mrs. Hunter to proceed as guardian and conservator and do her job,” Miller said.

Mouton told both sides that France’s attorney raised jurisdictional issues that had no time limit, and that he would approve motions on France’s behalf.

But, in defense of Hunter and the procedures, he cited earlier testimony of state investigators that France had been victimized in lottery scams, which were reported by a bank and investigated by police, that she was not eating as a result, and that she was depressed and potentially suicidal.

“She had an inpatient admission at a local hospital,” he said. “She wasn’t just singled out for help where help wasn’t wanted or needed.”

Myers said Forste had made several visits and had met with police concerning her mother’s losses. He said France was released from the hospital early after doctors decided she had “only mild depression.”





Susan Redden writes for The Joplin (Mo.) Globe.