Supreme Court of California

A conservator may not withhold artificial nutrition from a conscious conservatee who is not terminally ill, comatose, or in a persistent vegetative state, and who has not left instructions for health care or appointed an agent for health care decisions absent clear and convincing evidence that the conservator's decision is in accordance with either the conservatee's own wishes or best interest.

Appellate Information

• Decided 08/09/2001
• Published 08/09/2001

Judges

• WERDEGAR, J.

Court

• Supreme Court of California

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
•  Law Offices of Lawrence J. Nelson and Lawrence J. Nelson, San Francisco, for Petitioner and Appellant, Rose Wendland., Law Offices of James M. Braden, James M. Braden, San Francisco, James T. Diamond, Jr., Oakland, and Pamela J. Sieux, San Francisco, for Appellant Robert Wendland.,  Horvitz & Levy, David S. Ettinger and Jon B. Eisenberg, Encino, for Alliance of Catholic Health Care, California Healthcare Association, California Medical Association, Catholic Healthcare West, Mercy Heathcare Sacramento, San Francisco Medical Society and 43 Individual Bioethicists, Margaret C. Crosby, San Francisco, for American Civil Liberties Union, Catherine I. Hanson and Alice P. Mead, San Francisco, for California Medical Association, Vicki Michel, Terri D. Keville, Stanton J. Price, Ila Rothschild and Cynthia Fruchtman, Los Angeles, for Los Angeles County Medical Association, Los Angeles County Bar Association Joint Committee on Biomedical Ethics and Los Angeles County Bar Association Bioethics Committee, as Amici Curiae, on behalf of all Appellants.


• For Appellees:
  
• Brown, Hall, Shore & McKinley, Stockton, and Janie Hickok Siess, Lodi, for Objectors and Respondents., Wesley J. Smith, Los Angeles, for Coalition of Concerned Medical Professionals, Rita L. Marker for Ethics and Advocacy Task Force of the Nursing Home Action Group, McKinley & Smith, Timothy M. Smith, Sacramento;  and James Bopp, Jr., Terre Haute, IN, for the National Legal Center for the Medically Dependent & Disabled, Inc., Diane Coleman, Amy Hasbrouck, Somerville, MA;  Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia, Max Lapertosa, Los Angeles and Stephen F. Gold, Philadelphia, PA, for Not Dead Yet, Adapt, Self-Advocates Becoming Empowered, the ARC, Brain Injury Association, Inc., Center for Self-Determination, the Center on Human Policy at Syracuse University, the Disability Rights Center, the National Council on Independent Living, the National Spinal Cord Injury Association and TASH, as Amici Curiae, on behalf of Objectors and Respondents.