Fleming & Curti, P.L.C. - Evidence of Living Will Intent Must Be Clear and Convincing

OCTOBER 15, 2001 VOLUME 9, NUMBER 16

Evidence of Living Will Intent Must Be Clear and Convincing

Many patients approaching the end of life feel very strongly that they would not want to be kept alive by feeding tubes, artificial breathing machines or other devices. Signing appropriate advance directives helps, but there is no guarantee that they will be located, properly understood and followed in every case. Discussions with family members, caregivers and medical providers can dramatically increase the likelihood that the patient’s wishes will be carried out.

Consider, for example, the case of Delores Cameron. She had been married for over 40 years to James Cameron, but she had two sons from an earlier marriage. In 1995 she signed a living will, using the form provided by the Alabama Legislature. It directed that "artificially provided nutrition and hydration" should be withheld if she were ever in a persistent vegetative state.

In March of 2000, after a series of strokes, Ms. Cameron became completely unresponsive. She was cared for in an Alabama nursing home, and fed through a feeding tube. Mr. Cameron directed the nursing home to remove the feeding tube.

Ms. Cameron’s sons filed a lawsuit to prevent removal of their mother’s feeding tube. After five days of hearings lasting over two months, the judge ruled that Ms. Cameron’s wishes should be honored, and her sons appealed. They made two arguments that serve as a warning for other patients who execute living wills, durable powers of attorney or other advance directives.

First they argued that Ms. Cameron was not really in a persistent vegetative state. Although one physician testified that she was slightly responsive to some stimulation, two others insisted that she lacked "thought, sensation, purposeful action, social interaction and awareness of self and environment."

The sons also insisted that it was impossible that their mother really understood the meaning and effect of her living will when she signed it. If she had realized that it would have meant withdrawal of a feeding tube, they argued, she would not have signed the pre-printed form. They did not provide specific evidence of her wishes, but doubted that she had intended to sign the living will.

The Alabama Supreme Court decided that Ms. Cameron’s wishes should be followed—but only if the evidence of those wishes was "clear and convincing." The trial judge had not used that phrase, so the case was sent back for a further hearing. Knight v. Beverly Health Care, August 31, 2001.

Would it have helped for Ms. Cameron to discuss her wishes with her sons in advance? The financial and emotional cost of legal proceedings might have been avoided if family members had talked over the documents and their meaning before Ms. Cameron’s final illness.

The moral of Ms. Cameron’s story: It is not enough to just sign a directive—family members should be informed and wishes discussed in advance.

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