Daughter Waited Too Long to Challenge Gifts

The petition filed by a daughter challenging the gifts made to the other daughter four years before the mother was adjudicated incapacitated was denied because: (a) The lawyer who had represented and advised the incapacitated person (IP) in 2011 and 2012 testified credibly that she showed no lack of memory or lack of mental capacity, and that she was not unduly influenced by anyone, when she signed a new will disinheriting the one daughter, and then later giving four properties to her other daughter because of concerns that the disinherited daughter would challenge the will. (b) The disinherited daughter had no standing to challenge the transfer of the four properties by her mother during her mother’s lifetime. (c) Although the IP had signed a power of attorney in favor of the daughter to whom she made the gifts, the document remained in the possession of the lawyer and there was no other evidence of a confidential relationship between the IP and that daughter. (d) The disinherited daughter had filed two petitions challenging the gifts before her mother was adjudicated incapacitated in 2016, but withdrew the petitions and then petitioned again to void the gifts four years later, but laches applied because the daughter receiving the gifts had changed her financial position in reliance on the gifts. (e) Medical records are admissible for the facts in the records but not the medical opinions in them, and the court would not take judicial notice of drug information found on the Internet as evidence of the purpose for which the IP was prescribed a drug. In re: L.G., an Incapacitated Person, 1 Fid.Rep.4th 280 (Chester O.C. 2022), aff’d 331 EDA 2022 (Pa. Super. 7/14/2022) (no opinion).

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