In general, state courts appoint a guardian for individuals when a judge or other court official determines that an individual lacks the capacity to make important decisions regarding his or her own life or property. Depending on the older adult’s needs and relevant state laws, a court may appoint a “guardian of the person” who is responsible for making all decisions for the older adult, or a “guardian of the estate”—or conservator—who only makes decisions regarding the older adult’s property. When state courts appoint guardians, older adults often forfeit some or all of their decision-making powers. Depending on the terms of the court’s guardianship appointment, older adults may no longer have the right to sign contracts, vote, marry or divorce, buy or sell real estate, decide where to live, or make decisions about their own health care. Courts can generally appoint different types of guardians including the following: Family guardians. According to the Center for Elders and the Courts, courts favor the appointment of a family member or friend, often called a family guardian. However, it may not always be possible to find family or friends to take on this responsibility. Professional guardians. A professional guardian may be hired for a fee to be paid by the older adult, and may serve more than one older adult at a time. Some states require that a professional guardian be certified. This requirement is described in additional detail later in this report. Public guardians. If an older adult is unable to find a capable family or friend and is unable to afford the fees and associated expenses of hiring a professional guardian, a public guardian—whose cost is funded by the state or local government—may be appointed. Elder abuse is a complex phenomenon. Table 1 describes the types of elder abuse, according to the National Center on Elder Abuse. Each of these can affect older adults with guardians, as well as those without. The categories include physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, as well as financial exploitation, neglect, and abandonment, but it is not uncommon for an older adult who has been abused to experience more than one type of abuse simultaneously. The extent of elder abuse by guardians nationally is unknown due to limited data on the numbers of guardians serving older adults, older adults in guardianships, and cases of elder abuse by a guardian. While courts are responsible for guardianship appointment and monitoring activities, among other things, court officials from the six selected states that we spoke to were not able to provide exact numbers of guardians for older adults or of older adults with guardians in their states. Also, on the basis of our interviews with court officials, none of the six selected states appear to consistently track the number of cases related to elder abuse by guardians. Court officials from the six states we spoke with described the varied, albeit limited, information they have related to elder abuse by guardians and noted the various data limitations that prevented them from providing reliable figures on the extent of elder abuse by a guardian. California. A court official in California stated that while the Judicial Council of California collects information about requests for restraining orders to prevent elder abuse, it does not separately identify those cases alleging elder abuse by a guardian. The council also collects the number of new guardianships filed each year statewide. The official stated the number of new adult guardianships is partially estimated because about half of the courts in the state report a combined number of guardianships for minors and adults. Florida. A court official in Florida acknowledged that the court does not collect guardianship and elder abuse information such as the number of guardians for older adults, the types of guardians currently serving in guardianship roles for older adults, and the number of elder abuse hearings conducted. This official cited lack of funding as a barrier for collecting this type of information. Detailed information on financial exploitation specifically may be available at the county level. For example, officials from one county in Florida told us that it collects data on the number of guardianships and the assets guardians control, and also identified the amount of fraud over a 4-year period. Minnesota. A court official in Minnesota told us that the state differentiates between guardianship of the person and conservatorship of the estate. The state collects figures on the (1) number of guardianship cases, (2) number of conservatorship-only cases, and (3) number of combined guardianship and conservatorship cases; and can break these figures out by minors and adults. The state also has a statewide program housed in the court system—the Conservator Account Auditing Program—that audits the financial reports that guardians of the estate (or conservators) are required to submit electronically through a system called MyMNConservator. This system can calculate the total assets under court jurisdiction in Minnesota, which are presented in an annual report. According to the annual report, the program audits accounts with assets over a certain threshold at regular intervals and upon referral by the court. However, one of these officials told us that this system does not track the age of the individuals with guardians of the estate, so the number of older adults in this arrangement is not identifiable. Ohio. An official from the Supreme Court of Ohio told us probate courts in the state report to the Supreme Court quarterly aggregate caseload data including the number of pending guardian applications for adults, the number of new applications for the appointment of guardians, and the number of guardianships closed, but the data are not classified by the age of the person under guardianship. Additionally, although local courts may do so, the Supreme Court of Ohio does not capture the number of complaints related to guardianships. Court officials directed us to state Adult Protective Services (APS) elder abuse complaint data. Texas. Court officials in Texas told us that every county is required to submit monthly information to the Office of Court Administration pertaining to active guardianships. However, officials told us that some counties do not report any active guardianships (considered to be underreporting), and some counties overreport on active guardianships that should have actually been closed, such as when the person under guardianship is deceased. Washington. A court official in Washington stated that while she could provide the number of adult guardianships statewide, she could not provide this information specifically for older adults. Further, the state’s Certified Professional Guardian Board publishes the number of grievances against professional guardians each year its annual Grievance Report, but does not identify which were for older adults. This official stated that while the court has case information on abuse by professional guardians, it does not track information on abuse by family guardians. Representatives from nongovernmental organizations we spoke with also told us that the way cases are classified in the court system makes collecting data on elder abuse by guardians difficult. For example, representatives from the Center for Elders and the Courts told us that few cases appear to be clearly labeled with phrases such as “elder abuse” in the court system, making it difficult to identify the universe of these cases. These representatives explained that cases of elder abuse may appear as other charges, such as assault, battery, or theft. Identifying all cases involving elder abuse, and more specifically that by a guardian, would require a difficult manual review of a large volume of court cases. Further, stakeholders we spoke to noted that instances of elder abuse by guardians can be difficult to prosecute, reducing the number of known cases in the legal system and presenting an additional challenge to identifying the extent of elder abuse by guardians. Collecting reliable information about court practices related to guardianship can also be challenging. At the request of SSA, the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) administered and analyzed the results of a survey of judges, court staff, and guardians to review guardianship practices in state courts in 2014. The survey collected information regarding appointment, monitoring, and discipline of guardians; caseloads and electronic case-management capabilities; and court interaction with federal agencies and other organizations. However, in administering this survey, ACUS was unable to identify a sample of courts that were representative of the guardianship practices in all states as no comprehensive list identifying courts or judges that have oversight of adult guardianship cases exists, which makes it impossible to generalize the findings to a known universe. In the absence of reliable data, information on individual cases can provide some insight into the types of abuse guardians have been found to inflict on older adults under guardianship. In a 2010 report, we identified hundreds of allegations of abuse, neglect, and exploitation by guardians in 45 states and the District of Columbia between 1990 and 2010. At that time, we reviewed 20 of these cases and found that guardians had stolen or otherwise improperly obtained $5.4 million from 158 incapacitated victims, many of whom were older adults. Table 2 provides a summary of eight new cases in which guardians were found to have financially exploited or neglected older adults under guardianship in the last 5 years. Seven of these cases were identified using public-record searches, while the eighth was referred to us during one of our interviews. We examined court records, police reports, or other relevant documents to corroborate key information about each case. The illustrative examples of selected closed cases of elder abuse by a guardian we identified are nongeneralizable and cannot be used to make inferences about the overall population of guardians. Stakeholders we spoke to described their observations about elder abuse by a guardian. According to stakeholders, financial exploitation is among the more common types of elder abuse. Similarly, all eight of the closed cases of elder abuse by a guardian we found, presented above in table 2, were examples of financial exploitation. A prosecutor in one of the states we spoke to shared her observation that the majority of financial exploitation by professional guardians is done through overcharging for services that were either not necessary or were never performed. One representative commented that greed was a driving factor for guardians to financially exploit persons under guardianship. Some stakeholders we spoke to also expressed concerns that guardians may become overwhelmed by their guardianship responsibilities, or may not have the proper training and education to understand and perform their guardianship duties.