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In 1995, the Iowa Supreme Court decided an important case about guardianships, called In Re Hedin. In that case, the court stated that when a guardianship is set up, there is a significant loss of liberty. Because of this, the court said that the ward should have full due process rights. As a result of this case, the Iowa Legislature amended the guardianship statute. Four major changes were made to Iowa law.

The Newer Standard for Deciding If a Guardianship Is Appropriate
The old standard for deciding whether a person was incompetent and needed a guardian, was whether the person could make or carry out important decisions. Now, the court looks at how impaired the person’s decision making is. Is the person unable to care for his or her personal safety? Is the person unable to attend to or provide for such necessities as food, shelter, clothing, medical care? Because of this will physical injury or illness occur? Are there are others available to help the ward? Iowa law requires that the court consider a person’s “functional limitations” in determining whether and what type of guardianship is needed. Functional limitations are defined as “the behavior or condition of a person which impairs the person’s ability to care for the person’s personal safety or to attend to or provide for necessities for the person.”

The New Standard for Deciding How Much Authority a Guardian Has Over a Ward
The court must limit the guardianship as much as possible. The court should allow the ward to continue to have the legal right to make as many decisions as possible. The court must decide whether a limited guardianship is appropriate and make findings of fact to support the powers given to the guardian in all cases.

The New Standard of Proof and Burden of Proof Rules
The last two changes involve the issues of who has the burden of proof and what the standard of proof is.

Burden of proof is about who must provide evidence. The party with the burden of proof in a case has to produce evidence to prove a fact. If a party has a burden of proof and does not produce enough evidence, the party will lose on that issue.

Under old Iowa law, the burden of proof was on the person asking to have a guardianship set up. The burden of proof was on the ward in cases where the ward was attempting to end the guardianship. Under the new standard, the burden of proof remains on the person asking for the guardianship in cases to set up a guardianship. However, in a proceeding to change or end a guardianship, the burden of proof shifts to the guardian to prove the ward is incompetent. This happens once the ward has shown that the ward has some decision making ability.

Standard of proof has to do with the amount of evidence that must be presented in order for the court to make a determination about a fact. In most civil law cases, the standard of proof is a “preponderance.” Preponderance means most of the evidence shows that something is true. It is more likely than not that a particular fact is true. In criminal cases, the highest standard of proof is used, “beyond a reasonable doubt.” If there is any reasonable doubt, the fact or guilt of the person will not be established. A third standard of proof is “clear and convincing evidence.” This standard is used in some types of civil case. This standard is higher than a preponderance of evidence, but lower than beyond a reasonable doubt.

The old standard used in guardianship cases was a preponderance of the evidence. Now in proceedings to set up, change, or end a guardianship, standard of proof for determining incompetency is “clear and convincing evidence.”

Funding for this information was provided by the Iowa Governor’s Developmental Disabilities Council.