Tarrant County Judge Pat Ferchill announced his retirement effective Aug. 31 after sitting on the bench for 35 years in Probate Court No. 2. Ferchill was two years into a four-year term that expires in 2018. He will continue to sit on the bench as a visiting judge until county commissioners appoint his successor.
Some people might shed a tear for Ferchill’s departure, we suppose. Probate courts resolve some sticky family dramas at times.
“The county is going to miss him more than they’ll know after he’s actually gone,” Associate Judge Lin Morrisett told us on the phone this week.
You know who won’t miss him? The families who have described how a guardianship system overseen by Ferchill and fellow probate Judge Steven King have ripped apart families unnecessarily in the name of greed and power. The first case we examined in the Fort Worth Weekly involved Kathie Seidel, a mother who adopted a child from Russia but later lost custody after a guardianship hearing was held by Ferchill without Seidel being present (“Saving Katia,” July 2, 2008). After that article appeared, dozens of families called the Weekly to describe similar horror stories of a powerful court system under the influence of money-hungry attorneys and healthcare facility operators more interested in lining their pockets than doing what is best for families. Associate Editor Jeff Prince has written numerous stories about the probate system and has compiled a long list of local families who describe being victimized by the probate courts.
Frank and Chila Covington were one of those families. Ferchill removed them as guardians of their Down Syndrome daughter, Ceci, without bothering to let them know that their parental rights were being questioned. Yep, the court has that power and wielded it like a baseball bat against them in 2009. The Covingtons’ crime? They did not want caregivers at a group home to give powerful psychoactive drugs to Ceci. The doctors had given her anti-depressants after she had become cranky and emotional. Chila said pain from fibromyalgia and a tooth abscess had caused her daughter’s outbursts. “Both of these diagnoses were discovered after we got her back,” Chila said.
The Covingtons say Ferchill’s decision to remove them as guardians was a way to pad the pockets of attorneys and caregivers who profit from working with Guardianship Services, Inc., the program that Ferchill and his attorney buddies helped establish in 1998 allegedly to provide help for people in need.
Ferchill just wanted to send people to Guardianship Services, Chila said.
“We were just somebody else he could manipulate,” she said. “It is just greed.”
The Covingtons spent about $400,000 in a years-long fight to regain custody of their daughter.
Ferchill “devastated our lives with lies,” Chila said. “They decided to control my daughter’s destiny by saying she was psychotic.”
Another local woman, Dorothy Luck, was put under guardianship after the probate court decided she wasn’t mentally sound enough to manage her financial affairs correctly. Luck is elderly but quite sharp when it comes to her personal and financial affairs. But all it took was one complaint from a relative (who had a vested interest financially) and Luck found herself having to defend her abilities to take care of herself (“Grabbing the Purse,” Sept. 3, 2013). She proved herself capable time and again, but she couldn’t stand up against a court system so powerful that it can remove a person’s rights at will.
Over the next year or so, court-appointed attorneys charged about $500,000 to Luck’s bank account while, a’hem, valiantly fighting to protect her money from … uh … herself.
Seidel spent a decade fighting against Ferchill and the probate court’s methods, first as a lone voice in defense of Katia and, later, as part of advocacy groups such as G.R.A.D.E., or Guardianship Reform Advocates for the Disabled and Elderly, a group formed to help protect people from overzealous probate judges. Seidel died from cancer a few weeks ago, on August 16, at her Fort Worth home. She still blamed Ferchill for putting her family through hell unnecessarily. Shortly before she died, she e-mailed Prince.
“Things are pretty dicey with physical problems,” she wrote. “Of course, it is hard to do any letting go where my children and other loved ones are concerned. It won’t be difficult to let go of the physical challenges.”
After that first quick paragraph, she dived into the topic that drove her to rail against a powerful system for the last decade of her life. Her adopted daughter was put under guardianship, removed from her home, and prevented from seeing her mother for years.
Guardianship Services “is being informed this week that I am terminal in hopes that we can get more visits with Katia,” who is 30 years old now and living in a group home, “and to prepare her for my death,” Seidel wrote. “It kills me to think of what K will go through in having so little family support through the grief she will encounter … also, I want her to be able to go to grief counseling –– but am doubtful she will get it. We worked for more than six months trying to find money and a high-profile attorney to advocate for her knowing this might be coming.”
She ended her e-mail by expressing fears that the probate court would toss one more indignity her way as she was dying.
“If there is retaliation toward me (threatening to put me under guardianship), I have written a letter,” she said. Her son, Greg, “knows the location of it, and you may be interested in it.”
Seidel’s friends say she would have appreciated knowing that Ferchill will no longer sit on the bench.
I’m just taking a wild guess here….does anyone know for certain, possibly, maybe, some how, some way, the Honorable Judge could be one of those Tea-Bagging Republicans???? Wasn’t he one of those fur-balls raising Hell about Hooters… suggesting they were not entitled to be treated like other hard-working, stand-up Americans ? Is he any kin to Mayor Price and her high-handed, well connected, Tea-Bagging bullies ? When will we ever learn?
Yeah, lets put a communist dimocrat in. That’ll fix things!
Thank you for this story. The guardianship laws in Texas are being reformed. In the last session a little accountability was added to the law. Next session even more restriction on the judges and lawyers who profit for probate are in the works.. This and many other probate judges fought and lost…we might she a rash of retirements as the gravy train is ending. Please support G.R.A.D.E. http://www.guardianshipreform.org/
I am trying to gain guardianship of my daughter so I can bring her to Tennessee with me and her family. Guardianship services inc. now has guardianship over her and this company is all about money not whats in the best interest of the person. I need help.
The article confirms my personal experience with Judge Ferchill as guardianship Judge for my daughter. I learned he was gone while talking with the court about renewal of my letters only last week. Good Journalism. Good riddence. “Guardianship Services, Inc.” should be investigated audited and sued.
My Mother was put under Guardianship Services after the nursing home she was in called and made complaint on Me for protecting my Mom from them. I gave them notice I would be taken her home and they used Guardianship as a way to stop me. This nursing gave my Mom repeated blood infections over a 6 week time frame. I was my mothers medical power of atty decision maker. These drugs left my Mom blind and deaf overnight. I applied for Guardianship. The record shows that I was suitable but the court Social Worker Arlene (who was close friends with the Social Worker at the Nursing Home my Mom was in.) recommended that Guardiaship Services be place as Guardian. Arlene S. and the floor nurse sent my Mom to Lancaster Hospital and they locked her up on the psych fl. I requested she be checked for a bld infection they did check her and she again had one. They treated her for 10 days and finish up her 30 day stay in the psych ward. Arlene said they sent all the Wards there for mental evaluations there. There was no court order to lock her up this way. She was in the psych ward for approx 12 days before we could see the Dr to check her for a blood inf. This is way she seemed psychotic. She was having delirums from the infection and the antipsychotic drugs she was given. Arlene never let the courts know this case was based on negligence and abuse of the Nursing Home. We (family) that was at court was never allowed to speak The decision was made in the chambers of Judge Ferchll. When they came out the Guardian from Guardianship Services was sworn in and the hearing was over. The guardian was not protecting my Mom. But Arlene was to go to for Court 2. All my complaints she answered by saying the Judge would not micromanage the Guardianship. We were talking about my Moms life. I was never allowed to speak to the Judge. My Mom was never removed from the drugs so she never regained her sight or hearing. Upon getting my Mom the Guardian moved her to a Nursing Home that would say Mom was terminal although she wasnt. They made her fit the criteria for hospice by documenting lies. She was in Hospice for 6 weeks and was given a terminal injection that put her in a coma. Once in the coma they let her starve and dehydrate and she died 4 days later after the inj. This Guardian changed my Moms chosen beneificiary to herself and collected all Moms insurance monies. No one listen to the family. This was in 2002. To this day I have proof but noone listens because they say she was in Hospice. This is a kangaroo Court and Money is all they ever been about. They protect Nursing Homes from lawsuits by putting loved ones in Guardianship even when there is a suitable , able and willing family or friend.
I’m praying for you. My family went through something similar in Ferchill’s court late 90’s. There is a new person running this spring for King’s old spot. From what I’m reading she is a conservative Republican and wonder how linked she is to the horrid duo of Ferchill/King. My thoughts are with you..
Clancy
I’m coming in a couple months late on this one, but I feel it is necessary to state the obvious for those who refuse to research this issue or refuse to acknowledge that there is more than one side to the issue.
As someone with no dog in this fight whatsoever, I am astounded at the lack of journalistic integrity of this and similar articles (see, for example, the Texas Tribune article on the Covingtons, although it at least briefly quotes some dissenting views) concerning the Covingtons and others and the guardianship system in Texas. Only half of the story is being told. Reading this article and others, one would think that the authors never even read the court opinions surrounding these cases.
This article operates under the delusion that the parents of those with special needs are all angels and can do no wrong. Often, unfortunately, the opposite is the truth. This is one of the reasons we have guardianships – to protect incapacitated persons from immoral, unethical, and abusive family members.
If journalists took the time to do their job and read the court documents and other documentation surrounding the Covington case, they would see a pattern of neglectful and harmful behavior on the part of Cecilia Covington’s parents. The Covingtons refused to have their child evaluated when she showed obvious signs of mental illness that would likely continue to be exacerbated without proper treatment. They were of the opinion that they knew better than medical professionals how to administer medication, all while ignoring the very real danger of the adverse effects of mixing various medications (in fact, they attempted to hide from medical staff the medications and doses of medication they were giving their child without any medical professional’s recommendation or assent – Cecilia could have died from this). They provided implements for their daughter to use as weapons against staff. They refused to allow Cecilia’s rapidly degrading mental and physical state to be treated by professionals, insisting that they knew better. There is a mountain of evidence showing that the Covingtons were unfit to serve as their daughter’s guardians and to protect her interests.
For anyone interested in hearing the other side of the story, please read the Court of Appeals opinion: http://caselaw.findlaw.com/tx-court-of-appeals/1600275.html
Guardianship isn’t de facto evil. Professional guardianship companies aren’t de facto evil. Neither are the judges, guardians, and attorneys involved in these cases. Are there situations where guardianship is inappropriate or implemented wrongly? Of course – and, more often than not, it is because a family member has been appointed guardian and is mistreating and taking advantage of the incapacitated ward. Instead, state and local media in Texas have sensationalized the story to make it appear that the big bad evil judicial system is coming to steal their special needs family members.
The truth is almost never black and white. It is almost always a shade of grey. Are there abuses of the guardianship system in Texas? Of course. Is that the case with the Covingtons? No. Do some research before leaping to the defense of irresponsible parents.
Please feel free to read some of the previous stories I’ve written about the local probate courts and the guardianship system and determine for yourself whether they were properly researched:
https://www.fwweekly.com/2013/09/04/grabbing-the-purse/
https://www.fwweekly.com/2010/09/08/in-whose-best-interest/
https://www.fwweekly.com/2010/05/19/rethinking-guardianship/
http://archive.fwweekly.com/content.asp?article=7022
I’ve been involved with a case in Probate court # 2 for year’s and the judge that replaced the other 2 scumbags treated me like I was a piece of Crap that needs to be flushed down the toilet, my brother was removed as the Executor after I hired 2 attorneys and they reinstated him after I left the court room, I had all my money stolen from me, I had things at my mom’s house that he stole after living in the house for a year, and then rented out the house and kept the money. Both the attorneys quit on me while the city or state ate up all the money. They just gave my X Brother the money for selling the house after 7 years and I’ve got nothing. They are all crooked politicians and judge’s, just like all the attorneys.
I’m still trying to get what my mother and father left me.
I’m going to do my best to find a attorney and sue the city of Ft Worth Texas and the State of Texas if it comes to that, but I’ve had over 20 surgeries and live on Disability ,so they want me to just die or go away.
Judge king & x judge. Ferchill. Are both guilty of Inheritance hi jacking & Guardianship services Inc. Is as well , you reap what u sow.