Colorado Advance Directive Forms: Fill & Download for Free

What are powers of attorney?A power of attorney (“POA”) is a written instrument created by a person, the principal, giving another person, the agent, authority to act in his/her stead if s/he cannot. The principal can include in his/her instrument as many or as few authorizations under which his/her agent(s) may act as s/he deems appropriate; these authorizations are called “powers.” Hence, the title of the instrument.There are different of powers of attorney for different purposes. I will write about financial and medical durable powers of attorneys as part of estate plans.As paralegal on many estate planning cases in an estate planning, probate and elder law law firm, I prepared under attorney supervision many General Durable Powers of Attorney (“GDPOA”) and Medical Durable Powers of Attorney (“MDPOA”); “durable” meaning the instruments remain valid even if the principal becomes incapacitated as defined in the instruments and by law.The teaching is these instruments are important parts of a good estate plan: they anticipate the possibility the principal might one day become incapacitated and lack capacity to make his/her own financial or medical decisions; in the case of a GDPOA the principal may be unable or unavailable to complete such ordinary tasks as writing checks.The benefit of creating POAs is the principal has designated a person(s) to make decisions for him/her and left instructions for carrying out these decisions. Absent POAs if a person is deemed incapacitated and lacks capacity to manage his/her assets and affairs effectively and is deemed unable to make medical decisions for him/herself, and urgent decisions must be made for the person, conservatorship/guardianship proceedings for the person will have to be opened in probate court.Opening a conservatorship/guardianship proceeding means the court will appoint someone to serve in these capacities. It also means the person is now a ward of the court. It also means the conservator/guardian will have to submit periodic reports and accountings to the court.Conservatorship/guardianships involve some measure of litigation. These proceedings truly require the services of an attorney. They are expensive and, at least under Colorado law, the incapacitated/protected person’s estate usually pays attorney fees for having a conservator/guardian appointed.This litigation is often involved and contentious. The conservator/guardian the court appoints for the incapacitated/protected person may be a professional conservator/guardian whom the person has never met. It is important to know that professional conservator/guardians are EXPENSIVE: they charge for their services; they, too, are paid from the protected/incapacitated person’s estate. The point is fees attorneys and professional fiduciary fees can quickly deplete the person’s estate (though a POA might permit the agent to charge reasonable fees to the person for his/her time).POAs in most situations avoid these court proceedings: after principal is determined to be incapacitated (which may require a doctor’s letter), the agent under a GDPOA steps in the shoes of his/her principal. S/he can become a signer on the incapacitated person’s bank accounts. The agent can deal directly with such entities as incapacitated person’s credit cards, utilities providers and the like. These tasks can be accomplished smoothly and especially if a good attorney prepared a good POA.Under a MDPOA the agent also steps into the shoes of the principal: s/he can make medical decisions for the principal and deal with principal’s medical providers. Such decisions include but are not limited to consenting to medical treatment for the principal, hiring/firing caregivers and, very importantly, arrange for placement of incapacitated person in assisted living, skilled care, nursing home, etc.Finally, as agent under a MDPOA together with an advance directive s/he can make end of life decisions on behalf on the principal.It is important to emphasize agents under POAs must always make decisions in their principals’ best interests. They have a fiduciary duty under the law to exercise the highest care possible of their principals’ estates; an even higher standard of care than for their own assets.It is extremely important to emphasize POAs are neither absolute nor indefinite. The principal can revoke his/her POAs at any time. S/he can then create new POAs and appoint new agents. Or principal can opt not to have POAs altogether. At principal’s death, authority granted agents under POAs ends.It is possible agents under POAs can abuse their powers. E.g., from time to time agents under DPOAs drain their principal’s bank accounts and wrongly dispose of their assets. These actions are illegal. Agents could face criminal charges and be punished under the criminal justice system. For this reason, good estate planning attorneys will always advise clients who create POAs to chose their agents with care; after all, agents have easy access to their principals’ assets.My elder law firm schooled us extensively on the absolute necessity of having powers of attorney. Unfortunately, I experienced how POAs operate first hand.My elderly parent appointed me as his/her agent under both of her POAs. The time came when my parent could not longer make effective decisions regarding his/her financial affairs, nor could s/he make effective medical decisions which were in his/her best interests. So, as my parent’s agent, I became a signer on his/her checking account. I became authorized to speak for and act regarding my parent’s utilities and credit card accounts. With the advice from my parent’s medical caregivers I determined my parent had to be placed in assisted living. Eventually, with advice from them and his/her professional case manager whom I had hired to assist me, I determined my parent required hospice care.Absent powers of attorney I would have had to petition the probate court to be appointed my parent’s conservator and guardian. Being appointed would have been a lengthy, major and very expensive process. It would have depleted my parent’s resources and left less money available to pay for his/her nursing home care.Being agent under my parent’s DPOA and MDPOA avoided this mess.Based on my experiences as a paralegal who has prepared estate plans including financial and medical powers of attorney, having acted as agent under both types of instruments, and having created my own powers of attorney, I can say that, clearly, a power of attorney(s) is/are very powerful in time of need. Discuss your need for them with an attorney.

How powerful is a power of attorney in time of need?I can answer this question from multiple perspectives:I have been been an estate planning, probate and elder law paralegal who has prepared powers of attorney under attorney supervision for many clients, and have also prepared pleadings to open conservatorships/guardianships in probate courts;I was appointed and acted as power of attorney for my elderly parent and understood their use, thanks to my legal experience preparing same, and, later, experiencing their operation first hand in the real world; andWith my attorney I have created my own estate plan which includes financial and medical durable powers of attorney (“GDPOA and MDPOA,” respectively, or, collectively, “POAs”).In any power of attorney, the person, called the “principal,” creates the document and designates another person(s), the “agent,” to act in his/her stead if s/he cannot. The principal can include many or few authorizations under which his/her agent(s) can act; these authorizations are called “powers.” Hence, the title of the document.There are different forms of powers of attorney for different purposes. I will write about financial and medical powers of attorneys as part of estate plans.As paralegal on many estate planning cases in an estate planning, probate and elder law law firm, I prepared under attorney supervision many GDPOAs and MDPOAs. The teaching is these documents are important parts of a good estate plan: they anticipate the possibility the principal might one day become incapacitated and lack capacity to make his/her own financial or medical decisions; in the case of a GDPOA the principal may be unable or unavailable to complete such ordinary tasks as writing checks.The benefit of creating POAs is the principal has designated a person(s) to make decisions for him/her and left instructions for carrying out these decisions. Absent POAs if a person is deemed incapacitated and lacks capacity to manage his/her assets and affairs effectively and is deemed unable to make medical decisions for him/herself, and urgent decisions must be made for the person, conservatorship/guardian proceedings will have to be opened in probate court. Opening a conservatorship/guardianship proceeding means the court will appoint someone to serve in these capacities. It also means the person is now a ward of the court. It also can mean a stranger might be appointed as conservator/guardian for the person. It also means the conservator/guardian will have to submit periodic reports and accountings to the court.Conservatorship/guardianships involve some measure of litigation. These proceedings truly require the services of an attorney. They are expensive and, at least under Colorado law, the incapacitated/protected person’s estate is usually charged attorney fees for having a conservator/guardian appointed.This litigation is often involved and contentious. The conservator/guardian the court appoints for the incapacitated/protected person may be a professional conservator/guardian whom the person has never met. Very important is professional conservator/guardians are EXPENSIVE; they, too, are paid from the protected/incapacitated person’s estate.POAs in most situations avoid these court proceedings: after principal is determined to be incapacitated (which may require a doctor’s letter), the agent under a GDPOA steps in the shoes of his/her principal. S/he can become a signer on the incapacitated person’s bank accounts. The agent can deal directly with such entities as incapacitated person’s credit cards, utilities providers and the like. These tasks can be accomplished smoothly and especially if a good attorney prepared a good POA.Under a MDPOA the agent also steps into the shoes of the principal: s/he can make medical decisions for the principal and deal with principal’s medical providers. Such decisions include but are not limited to consenting to medical treatment for the principal, hiring/firing caregivers and, very importantly, arrange for placement of incapacitated person in assisted living, skilled care, nursing home, etc.Finally, as agent under a MDPOA (along with an advance directive) s/he can make end of life decisions on behalf on the principal.It is important to emphasize agents under POAs must always make decisions in their principals’ best interests. They have a fiduciary duty under the law to exercise the highest care possible of their principals’ estates; an even higher standard of care than for their own assets.It is extremely important to emphasize POAs are neither absolute nor indefinite. The principal can revoke his/her POAs at any time. S/he can then create new POAs and appoint new agents. Or principal can opt not to have POAs altogether. At principal’s death, authority granted agents under POAs end.It is possible agents under POAs can abuse their powers. E.g., from time to time agents under DPOAs drain their principal’s bank accounts and wrongly dispose of their assets. These actions are illegal. Agents could face criminal charges and be punished under the criminal justice system. For this reason, good estate planning attorneys will always advise clients who create POAs to chose their agents with care; after all, agents have easy access to their principals’ assets.My elder law firm schooled us extensively on the absolute necessity of having powers of attorney. Unfortunately, I experienced first hand how POAs operate.My elderly parent appointed my agent under both of his/her POAs. The time came when my parent could not longer make effective decisions regarding his/her financial affairs nor could s/he make effective medical decisions which were in his/her best interests. So, as my parent’s agent under her DPOA, I became a signer on his/her checking account. I became authorized to speak for and act regarding my parent’s utilities and credit card accounts.With the advice from my parent’s medical caregivers, as agent under his/her MDPOA I determined my parent had to be placed in assisted living. And, eventually, with advice from my parent’s caregivers and his/her professional case manager whom I hired to assist me, I determined my parent required hospice care.Absent powers of attorney I would have had to petition the probate court to be appointed my parent’s conservator and guardian. Being appointed would have been a major and very expensive process. It would have depleted my parent’s resources and, most importantly, left less money available to pay for his/her nursing home care.Being agent under my parent’s DPOA and MDPOA avoided this mess.Therefore, based on my experiences as a legal professional who has prepared estate plans including financial and medical powers of attorney, having acted as agent under both types of powers of attorney, and having created my own powers of attorney, I can say that clearly a power of attorney(s) is/are very powerful in time of need. Discuss your need for them with an attorney.

Commander Ernest Edwin Evans, commanding officer of the destroyer USS Johnston (DD-557).Evans was born in 1908 in Pawnee, Oklahoma. He was three-quarters Native American, specifically Cherokee. Evans joined the U.S. Navy in 1926 as an enlisted man, before receiving an appointment to the Naval Academy at Annapolis only a year later. He was assigned to multiple ships during the period between the wars, serving on ones such as the battleship Colorado, the cruiser Pensacola, and several destroyers, gradually moving up the ranks as he did so.When the war broke out he was serving as the Executive Officer on the destroyer USS Alden (DD-211), which was stationed as part of the Asiatic Fleet in ’41 and early ‘42. He earned the Legion of Merit when Alden and several other destroyers made several attacks on Japanese submarines, the first of several medals he would earn during the war. Alden took part in the Battle of Java Sea on February 27th, and managed to live to fight another day. Evans was assigned as the commander of the Alden on March 14th, and until June of 1943 she was relegated to the far-from-glorious duty of convoy escort.In July of ’43, Evans was reassigned to be the commander of the new (so new she wasn’t finished yet) Fletcher-class destroyer USS Johnston. Johnston was commissioned on October 27th, 1943, with Evans as the ship’s first (and only) captain. Johnston’s career would be short- just two days short of a year- but it would be Johnston in which Evans would secure his place in naval history as an absolute legend.Evans and Johnston saw combat for the first time together in February of 1944, bombarding the Japanese-held island of Kwajalein. In March Evans took her to bombard the Solomons, and on May 15th Johnston sank the Japanese submarine I-16. For this Evans received the Bronze Star, and Johnston went on to bombard Guam alongside the battleship Pennsylvania later in July. Beginning in September she was assigned to support escort carrier task groups, and during the Leyte operation, she found herself providing support for Task Unit 77.4.3. It was under this unit, known famously as “Taffy 3”, that Evans would earn his fame.On October 25th, Johnston and Taffy 3 were off the island of Samar to provide cover for the ground troops and to hunt for submarines. At about 7 in the morning, however, Taffy 3 found itself under the guns of Japanese Admiral Takeo Kurita’s Center Force. This was an immensely powerful fleet of surface ships, comprised of four battleships, six heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, and eleven destroyers. Just one of these battleships, the Yamato, weighed more than all the ships of Taffy 3 put together. Against such a massive fleet, Taffy 3 surely had no hope of survival. But they couldn’t simply run away; the Japanese ships were faster than the carriers and would soon overrun them. This left Taffy 3 with only one option; stand and fight.Evans and the Johnston were one of just three destroyers protecting the six small “jeep” carriers of Taffy 3, along with four smaller, slower, and less well-armed escort destroyers. Johnston weighed about as much as just one of the gun turrets of the Yamato, had practically no armor to speak of, and her largest gun was only a 5-incher. But she made up for this with two things: speed and torpedoes. Evans knew that the best chance Taffy 3 had at survival was to attack the enemy fleet with torpedoes, in order to break up their formation and slow their advance. When the order came down to lay a smoke screen to protect the carriers, Evans did that and then some. He gave the order for Johnston to turn directly towards the Japanese fleet, and charge in guns blazing at full speed. Evans was said to address his crew with the following as they began their suicidal charge:“A large Japanese fleet has been contacted. They are fifteen miles away and headed in our direction. They are believed to have four battleships, eight cruisers, and a number of destroyers. This will be a fight against overwhelming odds from which survival cannot be expected. We will do what damage we can.”(I’ve heard some say that the last part wasn’t said by Evans, but there’s really no evidence for or against it)Evans took Johnston onto a course to engage the lead Japanese heavy cruiser, the Kumano. Kumano weighed over three times as much as Johnston, was armored against 5-inch shells, and sported a main battery of ten 8-inchers in five turrets. The Japanese began firing at Johnston as she approached, and Evans skillfully had Johnston dodge the incoming rounds by chasing the shell splashes and assuming they wouldn’t aim in the same place twice. Using this method Evans was able to get Johnston within torpedo range, and she soon released all ten of her torpedoes towards the Japanese cruiser. All the while, Johnston scored dozens if not hundreds of hits on Kumano with her guns that reduced her superstructure to a blazing mess of twisted steel.After ducking behind her smoke screen for cover, Johnston came out to see that Kumano was burning even more fiercely and had slowed down substantially. One of her torpedoes had struck Kumano’s bow and torn off over sixty feet of her hull, forcing her to shear out of line and seek assistance from her sister Suzuya. This took two of the six Japanese cruisers out of the battle, all thanks to the efforts of Evans, the plucky little Johnston, and her gallant crew.As Johnston was retiring, however, she took a series of serious hits from the Japanese battleship Kongo. The ship’s bridge, where Evans was stationed, was smashed by several 6-inch hits and three 14-inch hits to the hull destroyed one of her engines and cut the power to three of her guns. With her gun-laying gyro temporarily disabled, three of her five guns gone, and her speed cut to half, Evans had no choice but to take Johnston into the cover of a rain squall that had appeared thanks to “sheer providence.” From there he shifted command of the ship to the stern, shouting course changes down into the steering room directly from above. Though he had been wounded seriously and even had several fingers blown off, Evans continued to command the ship. For several minutes the crew carried out as many repairs as they could manage, restoring power to some of her guns.Johnston’s charge had caused the Japanese formation to break up a bit and caused enough confusion to convince Taffy 3’s Admiral Clifton “Ziggy” Sprague to order the other destroyers to join the attack. Though Johnston had no torpedoes left and could only travel at around 17 knots, Evans ordered her to join the other destroyers and provide gunfire support. As the battered destroyer came out of her smoke she very nearly collided with her sister ship, the USS Heermann (DD-532). The two ships missed by less than ten feet, and immediately after, Evans had Johnston take up a position following behind as fast as her last remaining engine could carry her.Due to smoke obscuring the water, Johnston had a hard time finding targets. Evans ordered that she only fire on a target that could be plainly seen, and at 0820 she got just that. A Kongo-class battleship, either Kongo or Haruna, appeared through the smoke at a range of just 7,000 yards. Johnston opened fire and reported to have scored about fifteen hits on her superstructure, and somehow managed to dodge the return fire before pulling away as fast as she could.As Johnston retired from the battle for the second time, Evans noticed that the escort carrier USS Gambier Bay (CVE-73) was taking fire from a Japanese cruiser. Though Johnston was pushing her luck very far, Evans decided to do push it even further. Evans gave out the order: “Commence firing on that cruiser; draw her fire on us and away from Gambier Bay.”Evans led the Johnston into yet another suicidal charge against an opponent many times her weight, blazing away with what guns she had left. She succeeded in getting the enemy’s attention, buying Gambier Bay several precious minutes before her eventual demise. Johnston avoided taking any hits during this duel, but managed to score several hits on the cruiser. It was at this point that the Japanese destroyer squadron began to converge on the carriers, consisting of all eleven destroyers and led by the light cruiser Yahagi. The carriers at this point were incredibly vulnerable, with the destroyer Hoel having been sunk and several other ships from Taffy 3 hit or having expended their torpedoes.Johnston found herself as the only ship still in a position to intercept the Japanese force. Though she was outnumbered twelve to one, Evans was not deterred. He ordered Johnston to take the leading Japanese ship under fire, managing to score enough hits on the ship to convince it to break off. She continued to dodge the return fire and focused on the second destroyer, hitting it enough times to encourage it to retreat as well. The Japanese squadron broke off and fired their torpedoes at Johnston, all of which missed. These torpedoes were no longer a threat to the carriers, and Johnston had successfully managed to stall the entire squadron’s attack alone.That was when Johnston’s luck ran out. Another series of hits devastated what few functioning pieces of equipment the ship had left, smashing her remaining guns and causing her last remaining engine to quit. Johnston kept firing until her last gun had been silenced with practically half of the Japanese fleet now focusing their fire on her. At 0945, Commander Evans was forced to give the order to abandon ship as the ship began to slowly sink. At 1010 Johnston finally began to roll over onto her side, with a Japanese destroyer coming to within 1,000 yards and firing a final shot into her to ensure that she sank. According to survivors in the water, the captain of the Japanese ship saluted the Johnston as she sank.Evans was never seen again. It is unknown exactly what happened to him, whether or not he managed to make it off the sinking ship. But thanks to his gallant leadership, his crew’s guts, and the Johnston’s refusal to die, the Japanese force had taken serious damage. By the end of the Battle off Samar, the tiny American force would manage to sink half of the Japanese cruisers and damage a number of other ships. Kurita, in turn, would manage to sink just one escort carrier, two destroyers, and one destroyer escort. He would withdraw his defeated force not long after the Johnston sank, ending the David and Goliath scenario as a resounding American victory.Evans would be posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor and would share in the Presidential Unit Citation awarded to Taffy 3 for their gallant last stand.It was later said by a Johnston sailor that “The skipper was a fighting man from the soles of his broad feet to the ends of his straight black hair. He was an Oklahoman and proud of the Indian blood he had in him. We called him - though not to his face - the Chief. The Johnston was a fighting ship, but he was the heart and soul of her."