Title: In re Guardianship & Conservatorship of Jones

State: maine

Issuer: Maine Supreme Court

Document:

MAINE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT 
Reporter of Decisions 
Decision: 
2017 ME 125 
Docket: 
Wal-16-120 
Submitted 
 
On Briefs: November 29, 2016 
Decided: 
June 20, 2017 
 
Panel: 
SAUFLEY, C.J., and ALEXANDER, MEAD, JABAR, HJELM, and HUMPHREY, JJ. 
 
 
GUARDIANSHIP AND CONSERVATORSHIP OF VINCENT M. JONES 
 
 
HJELM, J. 
[¶1]  Kenneth E. Jones, conservator and guardian for his son Vincent M. 
Jones, and Susan C. Thiem, Esq., Kenneth’s counsel, appeal from two orders 
issued by the Waldo County Probate Court (Longley, J.).1  In the first of these 
orders, the court dissolved and replaced a supplemental needs trust that had 
been created for Vincent’s estate.  Kenneth argues that, for several reasons, 
the court was procedurally barred from creating a new trust for Vincent.  In 
the second order at issue on this appeal, the court directed Attorney Thiem, 
who created the original trust, to disgorge legal fees paid to her by Vincent 
and conditionally to pay additional amounts.  Attorney Thiem argues on 
appeal that this order deprived her of due process.  We affirm the court’s 
                                         
1  There is no appellee. 
 
2 
order creating the replacement supplemental needs trust, but we vacate the 
payment order against Attorney Thiem and remand for further proceedings.  
I.  BACKGROUND 
[¶2]  In 2008, Kenneth E. Jones filed a petition in the Waldo County 
Probate Court to be appointed guardian and conservator for his incapacitated 
adult son, Vincent M. Jones, because of Vincent’s debilitating mental illness.  
The court (Longley, J.) granted the petition in August 2008.  
[¶3]  Kenneth retained Attorney Thiem as counsel as early as 
December 2008.  In March 2013, Kenneth filed a petition with the Probate 
Court for retroactive judicial approval of a supplemental needs trust 
benefiting Vincent.2  In the petition, Kenneth stated that in August 2012, 
Vincent had been moved from a psychiatric hospital to the Charlotte White 
Center (CWC), a long-term care facility.  Kenneth further stated that Vincent 
was receiving Social Security and MaineCare benefits, and that because 
Vincent was now a long-term care resident, he could continue to receive 
MaineCare benefits if less than $10,000 were maintained in a trust.  After a 
telephonic hearing, the court issued an order in June 2013, concluding that the 
                                         
2  A supplemental needs trust, or supplemental care trust, is “a type of trust that holds funds on 
behalf of a disabled person . . . and that allows the beneficiary’s eligibility for certain Social Security 
and state health benefits to remain unaffected by the funds held in trust.”  DeCambre v. Brookline 
Hous. Auth., 826 F.3d 1, 4 (1st Cir. 2016) (citing 42 U.S.C.S. § 1396p(d)(4)(A) (LEXIS through Pub. L. 
No. 115-37)).   
 
3 
trust was in Vincent’s best interest and retroactively authorizing Kenneth to 
create the trust.   
[¶4]  In October 2013, Kenneth filed the third account of his 
guardianship detailing the assets and financial transactions of Vincent’s estate 
from June 2012 to September 2013.  See 18-A M.R.S. § 5-419 (2016).  The 
account indicated that in January 2013, the estate had made a $25,000 
payment, plus additional payments totaling $5,292, to CWC.  In response, the 
court appointed a visitor to “scrutinize the billing, determine if the ward is 
receiving services promised, [and] assess amounts charged to determine 
reasonableness and appropriateness.”  See id. § 5-419(c).  The visitor 
subsequently filed a letter with the court recommending that “a detailed 
invoice be required from CWC to confirm the reasonableness of the $25,000 
back payment.”  
[¶5]  After holding a telephonic status conference in January 2014, the 
court appointed a second visitor to research the $25,000 payment.  That 
visitor filed a report in May 2014, along with copies of an invoice for more 
than $62,000 arising from CWC’s care of Vincent from August through 
November 2012; correspondence from Attorney Thiem to CWC accompanying 
the $25,000 payment from Vincent’s trust account, in which Attorney Thiem 
 
4 
asserted that “Medicaid should have paid for the first 100 days of care” and 
thus that $25,000 was an overpayment; and a response from CWC’s chief 
financial officer.  The CFO’s letter stated that Attorney Thiem had 
misunderstood the funding sources and that CWC was owed for Vincent’s care 
until Medicaid began covering the payments in December 2012, but that CWC 
had agreed to discount the charges and accept $25,000 as full payment as an 
accommodation to Vincent.  
[¶6]  In July 2014, Attorney Thiem filed a motion for recusal and 
disqualification of Judge Longley, asserting that during the January 2014 
conference,3 the court “proceeded to berate [Attorney Thiem], intimating that 
[her] legal fees were excessive” and that her “procedural blunders” adversely 
affected Vincent’s assets.  Attorney Thiem subsequently moved to dismiss that 
motion “in light of the [court’s] threat [allegedly made at another hearing that 
is not noted in the docket], and to protect my client’s interest.”  
[¶7]  In orders issued on September 9, 2014, the court denied both 
Attorney Thiem’s motion to dismiss the motion to recuse and the motion for 
recusal itself, stating that the court had “acted even-handedly to date” and 
could continue to do so.  The court also issued an order noting that it had 
                                         
3  The record does not indicate whether the hearing was recorded, but in any event a transcript 
has not been included in the record. 
 
5 
found a “discrepancy” and a “dramatic change from the previous accounting” 
in the third account—the $25,000 payment to CWC—which, according to the 
court, the conservator, through Attorney Thiem, was unable to adequately 
explain.  In that order, the court concluded that an error by Attorney Thiem 
had necessitated the $25,000 payment.  In October, the court ordered Kenneth 
to file an explanation for “the $25,000 loss of assets from [Vincent’s] estate” 
and to address the issue of “[s]anctions for [Attorney Thiem] in light of delays 
and mistakes resulting in the $25,000 loss of assets from [Vincent’s] estate.”   
[¶8]  On November 24, 2014, Attorney Thiem filed a renewed motion 
for Judge Longley to recuse herself from the proceeding.  Additionally, 
Kenneth filed a petition for leave to resign as Vincent’s conservator based on 
his stated belief that the court was dissatisfied with his actions.  Kenneth 
subsequently filed both an amended third account and a fourth account to 
bring the accountings current through October 2014.  Later in December, the 
court appointed an attorney to represent Vincent’s interests in connection 
with the third account and the $25,000 payment to CWC.  
[¶9]  In January 2015, Attorney Thiem filed a motion to withdraw as 
counsel for Kenneth, asserting in part that her contentious relationship with 
Judge Longley had made it difficult for Kenneth to carry out his 
 
6 
responsibilities as Vincent’s conservator and guardian.  The court held a 
telephonic conference, in which Attorney Thiem participated, on February 10, 
2015.  Judge Longley issued an order on March 24, 2015, denying the renewed 
motion for recusal but granting Attorney Thiem’s motion to withdraw as 
counsel.    
[¶10]  This left several matters pending, including a ruling on the third 
and fourth accounts pursuant to 18-A M.R.S. § 5-419, and Kenneth’s petition 
to withdraw as conservator.  From June to December 2015, the court held five 
telephonic conferences on these outstanding matters, ultimately holding a 
hearing over two days in January and February 2016.4  Ten different notices of 
conference and hearing dates were sent to Kenneth, Vincent’s appointed 
counsel, and the visitor.  None of the notices was sent to Attorney Thiem, who 
had already been given leave to withdraw from the case.  The last two notices 
of hearing, which set out the two dates when the hearing was actually held, 
referred to the “Court’s Motion to Reform the Trust.”   
[¶11]  On the second hearing day, the court stated its view that the 
supplemental needs trust it had approved in 2013 was unnecessary because 
the funds it was intended to protect were already exempt from MaineCare’s 
                                         
4  The record on appeal includes a transcript of the second hearing day but not of the first. 
 
7 
eligibility calculations.  The court implied that Attorney Thiem had conflated 
Medicaid and Medicare in her analysis of Vincent’s situation, and stated that it 
wanted to issue an order that would “recoup . . . the legal expenses paid to 
date because of the situation that’s resulted, which has been the loss of 
[Vincent’s] life savings.”  The court further stated that reimbursement was 
needed because “justice requires that something be put in the [supplemental] 
needs trust” and that “a terrible legal mistake happened.”   
[¶12]  The court subsequently issued two orders on matters addressed 
at the hearing.  These orders are the subject of this appeal.  In one, issued on 
February 23, 2016, the court found that the conservator, represented by 
Attorney Thiem, failed to create a trust in time to protect the $25,000 paid 
from Vincent’s estate to CWC, and that Thiem’s legal fees of $3,638.35 were 
“unreasonable and excessive.”5  The court ordered “recovery of legal fees paid 
[Attorney] Thiem,” which the court directed her to pay by March 1, 2016.  The 
court further ordered that if Attorney Thiem did not disgorge her attorney 
fees by that date, the amount due from her would “double[] for each day of 
delay until recovery equals the $25,000 loss of the father’s savings for his 
disabled son, plus court costs.”  See infra n.8.   
                                         
5  In the order, the court also accepted Kenneth’s resignation as conservator, and another person 
was appointed to assume that responsibility.  Kenneth continues to serve as Vincent’s guardian.   
 
8 
[¶13]  In the second order, issued two days later, the court dissolved the 
supplemental needs trust it had approved post hoc in June 2013.  The court 
further ordered the establishment of a replacement supplemental needs trust, 
and, “[t]o save the time, money and energies of as many involved as possible,” 
the court itself drafted and issued the instrument creating that replacement 
trust.  The court attached the new trust instrument to its order.   
[¶14]  Attorney Thiem entered a limited appearance on behalf of 
Kenneth as guardian and filed a “motion to dismiss” the two February orders.  
The court denied the motion, and Kenneth and Attorney Thiem timely 
appealed.   
II.  DISCUSSION 
 
[¶15]  Kenneth asserts that the court erred by creating the second 
supplemental needs trust for Vincent, and Attorney Thiem argues that the 
court’s imposition of financial sanctions against her was an abuse of its 
discretion.  We consider these issues in turn.  
A. 
Creation of a Replacement Supplemental Needs Trust  
 
[¶16]  Kenneth challenges the process by which, in February 2016, the 
court dissolved the trust it had authorized in June 2013 and created another 
to replace it.  Without raising any issue about the substantive provisions of the 
 
9 
successor trust, Kenneth argues that 4 M.R.S. § 309 (2016) prohibited the 
court from independently drafting the instrument that created the 
replacement supplemental needs trust and then approving that trust.6  
Because Kenneth did not present this argument to the Probate Court, he has 
not preserved it for appellate review.  See In re Christopher H., 2011 ME 13, 
¶ 15, 12 A.3d 64.  We consider the argument, however, to the extent that he 
asserts the order is “void” for lack of statutory authority pursuant to section 
309.  See Estate of Reed, 2016 ME 90, ¶ 6, 142 A.3d 578 (“The Probate Court is 
a statutory court of limited jurisdiction and its actions are void unless taken 
pursuant to statutory authority.” (quotation marks omitted)); Laprel v. Going, 
2014 ME 84, ¶ 15, 96 A.3d 67. 
                                         
6  Kenneth also argues that the court was barred by principles of res judicata from creating the 
successor supplemental needs trust because it had already approved the first trust.  This argument 
is without merit.  Res judicata prevents the relitigation of identical factual issues that, under 
particular circumstances, were already decided, and of entire claims that were or could have been 
litigated in a prior action.  See Portland Co. v. City of Portland, 2009 ME 98, ¶ 22, 979 A.2d 1279.  
Here, concluding that the first trust did not accomplish its ostensible objective, the court created a 
new trust that it determined could more effectively serve Vincent’s needs.  The order establishing 
the successor trust did not constitute the relitigation of a factual issue or cause of action, and 
therefore was not barred by res judicata. 
 
Additionally, Kenneth asserts that the court erred by issuing the supplemental needs trust 
of its own accord, without a motion, notice, or hearing.  The partial record that Kenneth has 
provided shows that two notices of hearing sent by the clerk to Kenneth and other interested 
parties in January 2016 expressly referred to the “Court’s Motion to Reform the Trust.”  This was 
sufficient to place Kenneth on notice that the court intended to take up that matter.  Further, the 
transcript that Kenneth did include in the record, which is limited to the second hearing date, 
demonstrates that, contrary to Kenneth’s contention, a hearing was held on the issue of a 
replacement trust. 
 
10 
[¶17]  Section 309 provides in relevant part, “No judge of probate shall 
draft or aid in drafting any document or paper which he is by law required to 
pass upon.”  The Probate Code authorizes the probate courts to manage the 
affairs of a protected person and, as one aspect of that authority, expressly 
allows the court to create a trust of property of the person’s estate.  
See 18-A M.R.S. § 5-408(3) (2016).  To interpret section 309 as Kenneth 
argues would effectively prohibit a probate court from exercising its statutory 
authority to create trusts designed to safeguard a protected person’s property.  
To the extent that there is a conflict between the statutes, because section 
5-408(3) is narrower than the more generally framed provision of section 
309, the former controls.  See Butler v. Killoran, 1998 ME 147, ¶ 11, 714 A.2d 
129 (“[A] statute dealing with a subject specifically prevails over another 
statute dealing with the same subject generally.”).  Here, notwithstanding 
section 309, the Probate Court judge drafted and issued the successor trust 
instrument pursuant to the express authority vested in the probate courts by 
the Legislature, and the order therefore is not void.  
 
11 
B. 
Order of Payment Issued Against Attorney Thiem  
[¶18]  Asserting that she was not given notice or an opportunity to be 
heard, Attorney Thiem argues that the court erred when it issued the 
following order: 
[T]his [c]ourt orders . . . [b]y Mar. 1, 2016, recovery of legal fees 
paid Ms. Thiem, then doubled for each day of delay until recovery 
equals the $25,000 loss of the father’s savings for his disabled son, 
plus court costs.[7] 
 
Although the order does not explicitly identify the person who is required to 
make the payment, it is apparent from the language—and from the court’s 
comments in the order criticizing Attorney Thiem’s legal work in the case—
that this is an order requiring Attorney Thiem to disgorge her legal fees and 
potentially pay the additional amount.8   
                                         
7  The court relied on two statutes, 18-A M.R.S. §§ 5-414 and 3-721(a) (2016), as authority to 
order disgorgement of attorney fees based on its conclusion that the fees were excessive.  It may be 
that neither of these provisions applies to the circumstances of this case.  Section 5-414 provides 
that a lawyer or other professional who is appointed to participate in a protective proceeding is 
entitled to reasonable compensation paid by the estate.  Here, Attorney Thiem was not appointed 
by the court to represent the conservator.  Section 3-721(a) authorizes a probate court to 
determine the reasonableness of attorney fees paid by a decedent’s estate.  See Estate of Robert E. 
Sweetland, 2001 ME 21, ¶ 9, 770 A.2d 1017.  There is no parallel statutory provision, however, 
applicable to a protected person’s estate.   
We do not address whether either of these statutes authorized the court to take the action 
at issue here because Attorney Thiem has not raised such a challenge and because we are 
remanding the matter for other reasons. 
8  It is less clear to whom Attorney Thiem is to make the payment.  The order states that the 
$25,000 payment to CWC had been made from “the father’s savings.”  On the other hand, evidence 
in the record—the amended third account filed in December 2014 and the visitor’s report filed in 
May 2014—indicates that the payment came out of Vincent’s trust account.  Because the transcript 
 
12 
[¶19]  “We review de novo whether an individual was afforded 
procedural due process.”  In re Adden B., 2016 ME 113, ¶ 7, 144 A.3d 1158.  
“The essence of due process is notice and an opportunity to be heard.”  
Michaud v. Mut. Fire, Marine & Inland Ins. Co., 505 A.2d 786, 789 (Me. 1986); 
see Dowling v. Bangor Hous. Auth., 2006 ME 136, ¶ 12, 910 A.2d 376; 
Int’l Union v. Bagwell, 512 U.S. 821, 832-33 (1994).  Where procedural due 
process rights are at issue, “the deprivation by state action of a 
constitutionally protected interest in ‘life, liberty, or property’ is not in itself 
unconstitutional; what is unconstitutional is the deprivation of such an 
interest without due process of law.”  Zinermon v. Burch, 494 U.S. 113, 125 
(1990).  This means that the state “must say what it intends to do and then 
give affected persons the chance to speak out against it.”  Rivera-Corraliza v. 
Puig-Morales, 794 F.3d 208, 223 (1st Cir. 2015).   
[¶20]  The court’s payment order clearly implicates Attorney Thiem’s 
property interests.  See Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales, 545 U.S. 748, 766 
(2005) (noting that rights with an “ascertainable money value” fall within the 
traditional concept of property (quotation marks omitted)).  Accordingly, she 
                                                                                                                                   
from the January 19, 2016, hearing date has not been provided to us, we cannot know whether the 
court was presented with information different from the evidence presented in the record.  On 
remand, the court will have the opportunity to clarify this issue. 
 
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was entitled to process consisting of notice and an opportunity to be heard.  
She was provided, however, with neither. 
[¶21]  According to the record on appeal, once the court granted 
Attorney Thiem’s motion to withdraw as Kenneth’s attorney in late 
March 2015, the court did not send her notices of any pre-hearing conferences 
or of the hearing itself that resulted in the payment order.  In the absence of 
any notice whatever, the order that runs against Attorney Thiem personally 
must be set aside.9  Cf. Linscott v. Foy, 1998 ME 206, ¶ 22 n.12, 716 A.2d 1017. 
[¶22]  In addition to ordering reimbursement of attorney fees actually 
paid to Attorney Thiem, the court ordered her to pay additional amounts, up 
to a total of $25,000—the amount that the court concluded was unnecessarily 
paid to CWC—if Attorney Thiem did not disgorge the attorney fees themselves 
by a date certain.  As deficient as was the process resulting in the order 
affecting attorney fees themselves, the portion of the order making Attorney 
Thiem conditionally liable for amounts in excess of the attorney fees she was 
paid is even more flawed.   
                                         
9  Attorney Thiem, prior to her withdrawal, was on notice of the court’s concerns about both 
whether she had made mistakes in her legal work as the conservator’s attorney and whether those 
mistakes resulted in an unnecessary obligation for Vincent to pay $25,000 to CWC.  Attorney 
Thiem’s awareness of the court’s concerns prior to her withdrawal, however, is not a substitute for 
the notice she was entitled to receive of the actual adjudication of the reasonableness of her legal 
fees. 
 
14 
[¶23]  The court’s order issued against Attorney Thiem does not explain 
the nature and purpose of this conditional extended liability.  Consequently, it 
is impossible to determine prospectively the nature of the process that 
Attorney Thiem will be due should the court seek to pursue imposition of 
these additional fees.  See Zinermon, 494 U.S. at 127 (stating that due process 
is “a flexible concept that varies with the particular situation”); Splude v. 
Dugan, 2003 ME 88, ¶ 6, 828 A.2d 772.   
[¶24]  For example, if the additional increasing payments constitute a 
coercive sanction pursuant to M.R. Civ. P. 66,10 the court must follow the 
process prescribed in that Rule.  See Guardianship of Isabella Ard, 2017 ME 12, 
¶¶ 22-24, 154 A.3d 609; Cayer v. Town of Madawaska, 2009 ME 122, ¶ 8, 
984 A.2d 207 (explaining that for remedial contempt sanctions, Rule 66 
“requires the court to order service of a contempt subpoena on the alleged 
contemnor, and to conduct a hearing and take evidence by testimony, 
depositions, or affidavits”).  Or, if the order was an effort by the court to assess 
compensatory damages to benefit Vincent’s estate for the amount the court 
felt was lost due to Attorney Thiem’s allegedly deficient representation, 
then—even aside from any questions concerning the court’s standing to do 
                                         
10  Maine Rule of Civil Procedure 66 is applicable to the Probate Court.  See M.R. 
Civ. P. 66(a)(2)(F). 
 
15 
so11—the order may amount to a determination of legal malpractice and 
damages, which might entitle Attorney Thiem to the process that accompanies 
civil money damages claims, including the right to trial by jury.  Cf. Garland v. 
Roy, 2009 ME 86, 976 A.2d 940.   
[¶25]  Regardless of the nature and purpose of this additional layer of 
potential personal liability, Attorney Thiem received no process, and we 
vacate the order.  See Soley v. Karll, 2004 ME 89, ¶ 15, 853 A.2d 755 (vacating 
a court’s award of attorney fees as damages, and remanding for clarification, 
where the award was not authorized by any contract or statute and the court 
failed to explain the basis for its authority).  Because we cannot glean the 
character of this portion of the order, we do not reach the question of the 
nature of the process that the court must provide on remand. 
III.  CONCLUSION 
[¶26]  We affirm the order creating a replacement supplemental needs 
trust for Vincent’s estate.  The order requiring Attorney Thiem to disgorge 
attorney fees and exposing her to liability for even greater amounts, however, 
was not predicated on minimum process requirements to which Attorney 
                                         
11  The record before us contains no indication that Vincent, through his court-appointed counsel 
or otherwise, took steps to pursue a claim against Attorney Thiem or to otherwise recover any sum 
of money from her.  
 
16 
Thiem was entitled.  Accordingly, we vacate the payment order and remand 
for further proceedings.  
The entry is: 
Judgment entered February 25, 2016, affirmed.  
Judgment entered February 23, 2016, vacated.  
Remanded for further proceedings consistent 
with this opinion.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Susan C. Thiem, Esq., Law Office of Susan C. Thiem, Lincolnville, pro se and for 
appellant Kenneth Jones 
 
 
Waldo County Probate Court docket number 2008-148-6 
FOR CLERK REFERENCE ONLY