And it was a man who brought his sick, elderly mother in my office to sign a GPOA. She was in a wheelchair, and as he wheeled her in, her neck was limp, and her head was bobbing all over the place. She was in a housecoat, and had some sort of IV line still in her arm. He slapped the documents, and her CA ID card, down on my desk, and said, "She wants to sign these so I can take care of all her business".
I looked them over briefly, turned to the woman, and said, "My name is Priscilla. You're here to have your signature notarized on this General Power of Attorney document today?" She looked up at my slowly, with half-open eyes, and slurred, "What document? What am I signing?" I gave the documents and ID back to the son and said, "I can't notarize her signature. I'm not confident she even knows where she is, let alone that she's about to sign a General Power of Attorney. Sorry."
As he was leaving angrily, he said, "I'll be back with a doctor's note, and you'll be notarizing this document. That's what I'm doing. I'll be back." He's never come back.
It's not that I didn't want to help him, or help her. I don't know what his motives were, and honestly, I didn't want to find out. I had red flags and alarm bells as soon as he came in and she could hardly keep her head up. Sometimes you just have to trust your instincts. |
