New Guardian Can Change Beneficiary

In this suit involving competing claims to life insurance proceeds, a Norfolk Circuit Court holds that decedent’s widow, who was replaced by decedent’s daughter as his guardian and conservator, could be removed by the daughter as a beneficiary on decedent’s life insurance benefits, a change he requested when the daughter assisted him in processing his retirement papers.

The issue in this case is one on which Virginia case law or statutory authority offers little guidance: whether a duly-appointed conservator for an incapacitated person may revoke a beneficiary designation for her ward’s life insurance benefits and designate a different beneficiary.

The original designated beneficiary, Beverly Brown, argues that the onset of incapacity renders a prior designation irrevocable. The court concludes otherwise. The court rules that the desire of an incapacitated person with sufficient ability to advise his guardian/conservator about his testamentary wishes may be validly effected by the conservator. The court is satisfied that the conservator in this case revoked her father’s original beneficiary designation because he expressed his desire that she do so, and the court therefore gives effect to her action. The court rejects the claims of the widow, Beverly Brown, and accepts the claims of Ja’Sahn Brown and Beta Capital Corporation, which received an assignment of rights for payment of funeral expenses.

Beverly Brown claims the daughter‘s modification  of the beneficiary designation lacks validity because a guardian or conservator may not make such a change for a person who has no capacity to do it himself. One cases cited by the widow, Bryson v. Turnbull, 194 Va. 528 (1953), is more factually similar to the instant case. The holding there suggests that a guardian or conservator must not be permitted to change her ward’s beneficiary after the onset of mental incapacity. The Bryson court did not address, however, whether the incapacitated person had stated any desire about the disposition of the property. The opinion reveals nothing about the nature of her incapacity. It does not refer to any evidence offered about her desire or her ability to express any desire.

The current statute, Va. Code § 37.2-1000, not applicable in Bryson, does contemplate that a conservator will heed the wishes her ward expresses during the conservatorship. The most instructive case cited to the court is Parish v. Parish, 281 Va. 191 (2011), where the court approved a will made by a testator who was under a guardianship at the time. If an incapacitated person may have sufficient capacity to make a will, it follows that he may likewise have sufficient capacity to direct a change in his life insurance beneficiary designation. Both are testamentary decisions that take effect at death.

The only witness about decedent’s stated desire that Beverly Brown should not receive benefits came from Ja’Sahn Brown. That evidence, while not overwhelming, was not controverted. It was generally corroborated by testimony of family members who described meaningful conversations with decedent that they had during the period of Ja’Sahn Brown’s conservatorship. The general testimony was that he could express his wishes to a limited degree, he was fond of his daughter and wanted to remain with her, and that he did not wish to see or go back to Beverly Brown, who did not see him from 2008 to the time of his death in 2011. That decedent should prefer to confer a benefit on his daughter who took him in and cared for him during his last four years of life, rather than on a spouse of just a few years who was removed as his guardian for malfeasance and who had no contact with him for his last three years, is a conclusion that was supported by a preponderance of the evidence.

The court finds that Ja’Sahn Brown revoked the beneficiary designation because her father desired and directed that she do so.

Minnesota Life Ins. Co. v. Brown (Hall) No. CL12-1984, Nov. 21, 2012; Norfolk Cir.Ct. VLW 012-8-194, 8 pp.