Chief judge changes policies after news of guardianship work by judge's wife
Following a series of articles last month by the Palm Beach Post about a judge whose wife works as a professional guardian for elderly people, the chief judge of a Florida circuit court has announced changes in its guardianship policies.
They include standardizing billing practices and requiring jurists who work in the same area as Judge Martin Colin to recuse themselves from guardianships handled by his wife, Elizabeth Savitt, reports the Palm Beach Post.
Colin works in the Probate & Guardianship Division, which is responsible for appointing guardians like his wife to handle the estates of incapacitated senior citizens. That division is also responsible for approving the fees taken by guardians from their wards’ estates. Colin himself has never overseen his wife’s guardianship matters, but her attorneys did appear before him until the Post questioned the practice, the newspaper reports.
The chief auditor for Palm Beach County’s clerk and comptroller told the Post that Savitt had taken funds from accounts without obtaining prior court authorization, and that she was the only guardian the auditor knew of who had done so. Savitt denies any wrongdoing. “To the best of my knowledge, I have not been found by a court after a hearing to violate in any material way an order of the court or a rule that I was to follow,” Savitt wrote in an email to the Post.
Palm Beach County Chief Judge Jeffrey Colbath did not mention Colin by name in his announcement of the policy changes.
