A former nurse has been ordered to return over $550,000 after allegedly inherited it from a 92-year-old patient she’d only known for less than a month.
Abha Anuradha Kumar had been given over $880,000 AUD ($550,000 USD) from a grant of probate she received from her late patient, 92-year-old Lionel Cox of Melbourne, Australia.
A lawyer representing a relative of Cox claimed that the will was created under “the most suspicious circumstances imaginable” before his death in 2015, as reported by the Daily Mail.
Kumar had been a manager at Cambridge House, a residential aged care facility in Collingwood, Melbourne, when she met Cox less than a month before his death, court documents state.
Within three days of learning that the elderly man owned a valuable property in nearby Fitzroy but had no immediate family or will, Kumar allegedly bought a will kit and three weeks later is reported to have persuaded two other staff members to withes Cox’s handwritten will, a statement of claim alleged.
However, Kumar allegedly did not tell either of the witnesses that she was listed as the executor and sole beneficiary of Cox’s estate.
Cox died following a short battle with pneumonia on August 9, 2015, and while Kumar was reportedly not working on the day of his death, she allegedly called Cambridge House and told a junior staff member to search his belongings for his house key, before his body was taken to a funeral home.
She also became the ‘informant’ on Cox’s death certificate and obtained a grant of probate from the Supreme Court in November 2015.
Cox’s estate totaled well over $1million AUD ($645,000 USD), with Kumar gaining $1,117,000 AUD ($721,000 USD) from the sale of his home in 2016, as well as over $36,000 AUD ($23,000 USD) in cash and $3,000 AUD ($1,900 USD) in personal items.
The lawyer representing his cousin, Geoffrey Cox, had argued that Kumar’s actions amounted to elder financial abuse.
Kumar was handed a ‘summons for revocation’ in a Supreme Court action launched by State Trustees, owned by the Victorian Government, in August 2021, with lawyers alleging that Kumar did not execute Cox’s will in compliance with legislation and acted against his wishes.
On Thursday, Supreme Court Justice Melissa Daly ordered the grant of probate be revoked, revoking Kumar’s power to manage Cox’s estate.
She now must return the remainder of his estate, valued at $880,000 AUD ($550,000 USD) to his family in Australia, with the money she’d used to fund legal costs and administrative fees, including $150,000 for the 2019 hearing deducted from the total she’d originally received.
The decision comes five year after Kumar was banned from being a registered health practitioner after an investigation by the Nursing and Midwifery Board found she had engaged in professional misconduct.
“Ms. Kumar transgressed the boundaries that should and ordinarily do exist between a registered nurse and her patient in that she was over-involved in the affairs of Mr. Lionel Cox,” the Nursing and Midwifery Board stated in their review.
James Dimond, lawyer for Cox’s cousin, said of the latest court decision: “It’s an important reminder that the law can and will catch up with you eventually.
“This is a rare situation involving a medical professional, but elderly and vulnerable people are separated from their assets or pressured to sign dodgy wills and other legal documents all the time.”
