Reported / Citable
Background
R.R., a 67-year-old woman with schizophrenia, was subject to a conservatorship under the Lanterman-Petris-Short (LPS) Act due to grave disability. Her conservator, the Shasta County Public Guardian, filed a petition to reappoint. The hearing was delayed because the trial court was closed due to an emergency, then continued further because R.R. had been refusing to meet with the clinical psychologist assigned to evaluate her.
The trial court extended R.R.’s existing conservatorship letters to bridge the gap and held the hearing on June 3, 2025. At the hearing, Dr. John Mahoney testified about R.R.’s condition, including details from her medical records. R.R. demonstrated limited insight into her condition—she could not name her medications accurately, believed she could rent an apartment in Mountain View for $800–$900 “per year,” and proposed earning money by making art, passing the CPA exam, or directing musicals. The court reappointed the conservator.
R.R. appealed on two grounds: that the psychologist’s testimony about her medical records was inadmissible hearsay, and that her new conservatorship should have started the day after her prior conservatorship expired rather than on the hearing date.
The Court’s Holding
The Third District affirmed on both issues. On the hearsay question (addressed in the unpublished portion), the court agreed that Dr. Mahoney’s testimony about R.R.’s medical records constituted hearsay under People v. Sanchez (2016) 63 Cal.4th 665. However, R.R.’s counsel never objected at trial, and the court found no basis for an ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim because counsel could have had conceivable tactical reasons for not objecting—including that the records likely qualified as business records and that hearing the testimony helped counsel assess whether the expert relied on outdated information.
On the published question, the court held that Welfare and Institutions Code section 5361 unambiguously provides that a conservatorship begins upon “the appointment of the conservator by the superior court” and terminates one year later. Nothing in the statute authorizes retroactively starting a renewed conservatorship on the expiration date of the prior one. The court also addressed, in a modification order, the decision in People v. Nolasco (2021) 67 Cal.App.5th 209, finding that Nolasco assumed without explicitly construing section 5361 and did not establish a contrary rule.
Key Takeaways
- A renewed LPS conservatorship under Welfare and Institutions Code section 5361 begins on the date of the court’s reappointment order, not the day after the prior conservatorship expires.
- When a conservatorship hearing extends beyond the automatic termination date, the court may order the conservatee held pending completion of proceedings under section 5361(c)(1), but the new conservatorship does not backdate to the prior termination.
- Failure to object to expert hearsay testimony at a conservatorship hearing forfeits the issue on appeal, consistent with general evidentiary rules.
- Ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims based on failure to object are disfavored on direct appeal because the decision whether to object is inherently tactical.
Why It Matters
This decision resolves an open question about the start date of renewed LPS conservatorships when reappointment hearings are delayed past the automatic termination date. For public guardians and conservatorship attorneys, it confirms that any gap between the expiration of a prior conservatorship and the reappointment order must be bridged by a court order extending the conservatee’s detention—it cannot be fixed after the fact by backdating. This is especially important given how common hearing delays are in conservatorship proceedings due to court closures, continuances, or conservatees’ refusal to cooperate with evaluations. Practitioners should ensure they obtain explicit court orders extending letters of conservatorship whenever hearings slip past the automatic termination date.