Isolation of developmentally disabled woman continues after more than a year and a half

It has been a year and seven months since David Barr and his daughter, Ashley, were last informed by the Department of Developmental Services of the whereabouts of David’s other daughter, a young woman with a developmental disability and mental illness.

The 29-year-old woman, whose name is being withheld for privacy reasons, is being kept in an undisclosed residence. All contact with her by her father and sister was cut off for unclear reasons by a DDS-paid guardian in November of 2015.

Although Dorothy Wallace, the DDS guardian, said in August 2015 that her goal was to allow the woman to have family contact, it still hasn’t happened for reasons that have never been revealed to David or Ashley. For unknown reasons, the only family member who has been allowed to visit the woman is an aunt who has apparently agreed not to reveal the woman’s location to the woman’s father or sister.

In an email last week, Ashley Barr told COFAR that her father has personally filed in the Essex County Probate and Family Court to intervene in the case and to seek permission to visit his daughter. But to date, he has not heard from the court.

The probate court has not issued any orders barring visitation with the woman. The denial of virtually all family contact appears to be a decision of the woman’s guardian and possibly DDS.

The Barrs have been unable to afford the cost of hiring a lawyer to pursue their case in probate court. As we have reported in another case, it is extremely difficult to prevail in any probate court proceeding in Massachusetts if you are not a legal guardian or appear without a lawyer.

David and Ashley have contacted their local state legislators, but have gotten little or no help from them. COFAR has attempted to intervene with mainstream media outlets and the legislators in support of visitation for David and Ashley, also to no avail.

David and Ashley Barr

As we reported in January,  the Boston-based Disability Law Center temporarily intervened in the case that month to ask a state-appointed attorney who is representing the woman to support family visits if the woman wished that. However, nothing apparently resulted from that effort.

The attorney, Melissa Coury Cote, told COFAR in March that she would not support court permission for visits to the woman by David or Ashley Barr, despite the DLC’s request.  She provided no reason to us for opposing family visits other than to say that the woman had not specifically asked her to allow visits from her father and sister.

However, Ashley Barr said that her sister recently called her father on two occasions and said she missed her family and wanted to see them. The calls were apparently unauthorized. Ashley and David don’t know whose phone the woman used to contact them. They are concerned the woman may have gotten in trouble for making the calls.

Coury Cote had previously been appointed by the state Committee for Public Counsel Services (CPCS) to represent the woman on guardianship matters.  Under state probate law, incapacitated adults are entitled to free legal representation although their family members are not entitled to that.

COFAR has reported on a number of cases in which DDS-paid guardians have imposed severe restrictions on family contact with persons in the DDS/probate court system; but the Barr case may be the most extreme of those cases in that in none of the other cases has a DDS client been kept in isolation for such a long period of time, and in no other case has their family not been informed of their whereabouts.

COFAR first appealed to DDS Commissioner Elin Howe last October to seek permission for the Barrs to visit their family member, but Howe declined to do so.  In early April, COFAR sent an email to Howe, asking whether a timetable existed for ever reuniting Ashley and David with the woman. Howe did not respond to the query.

According to a transcript of an August 2015 court hearing on the case, Wallace and other DDS officials complained that David Barr was excessively combative in dealing with them and that David and Ashley became overly emotional when they had been allowed to visit the woman prior to the cutoff of all contact with her.

While being combative with DDS over the care provided to a loved one can occasionally result in restrictions placed on family contact, we know of no other case in which all such contact was removed for this long a period of time.

CPCS attorney was reportedly told to keep the family informed

John Byron, a friend of David Barr’s, who attended a probate court hearing on the case with David in March, said the probate court judge seemed to be moved when David said he had been prevented from any contact with the young woman and that no one was providing him with any information about her. According to Byron, the judge then told Attorney Coury Cote that she should communicate with the family and that she (the judge) didn’t want the family “kept in the dark” about the case.

Coury Cote told COFAR the judge had asked her during the hearing only to “take a few minutes to speak with father.” She denied that the judge had ordered her to keep David Barr informed about the case.  At one point, Coury Cote also said that the Barrs were “not entitled to information” about their family member’s whereabouts.

We believe, however, that in light of a Supreme Judicial Court ruling last year involving the guardianship of a woman known as B.V.G. , David and Ashley Barr should be considered by the probate court to be “interested persons” in the welfare of their family member. As such, they are entitled to information about her whereabouts and to be afforded visitation and other rights.

CPCS declines to review the attorney’s conduct

In March, we appealed to Mark Larsen, director of mental health litigation with the CPCS, asking for an investigation of Coury Cote’s conduct in the case. Larsen responded within two days of our appeal to state that the attorney had no obligation “to follow your directions, those of your client (apparently Ashley and David Barr) or of the DLC. Her only obligation is to her client and her client’s wishes.” He stated that “if the family wants a change in visitation, they should consult counsel of their choosing.”

For the record, neither David nor Ashley Barr are clients of COFAR. COFAR is advocating on behalf of them, but our organization does not charge for such advocacy.  Our funding comes strictly from donations made by affiliated organizations and from families.

Larsen also stated that it “appears” that Coury Cote “consulted with her client” in the case.

I wrote back to Larsen to clarify that I had not suggested, or meant to suggest, that Coury Cote should follow our or the DLC’s directions, but that it appeared to us that she “may not have fully ascertained the wishes of her client.” I also stated that Larsen’s comments implied that he did not know for a fact that the Coury Cote had consulted with her client, and that he was only assuming that to be the case.

I noted further that while the CPCS’s Assigned Counsel Manual states that an attorney should “act as a zealous advocate for the client,” the manual also states the attorney should insure “that proper procedures are followed and that the client’s interests are well represented” (my emphasis).

Larsen emailed back a two-sentence reply, badly misspelling my name and saying he had nothing to add to his prior response.

It is frustrating to us, although perhaps not surprising, that the DDS/probate court system seems so often to function against the interests of individuals and families caught up in it. One key reason for this appears to be that there is little or no accountability when professionals in the system act contrary to the interests of people who are powerless and vulnerable.

We always thought the role of legislators and the press was to represent the powerless in society. I think we’re all learning that is no longer the case.

We can only hope that when the Barrs finally do get their day in court, the judge will acknowledge the rights they have been denied and will consider the apparent wish of the young woman involved to see her family again.

In the meantime, we would urge people to call either the governor’s office (617-725-4005) or the DDS commissioner’s office (617-727-5608), and ask them to re-establish family contact in this case. If you do so, please let us know about it.