Updated August 9, 2026
This is an account of a lengthy court case concerning a lawsuit brought on by the eldercare aide I had hired for my 97-year-old Aunt, and who I later fired for elder abuse.
If you ever need to fire an eldercare aide who isn’t working out well for your elderly family member, you might find yourself defending a lawsuit.
Even if you have a legitimate cause for firing an aide, they can still bring on a lawsuit that can drag on for months or years, as will be described in this story.
I first became aware of a problem developing when I noticed that the aide was increasing the purchases of toiletries and food items.
I knew my Aunt couldn’t have been using so much. It soon became clear that the aide was taking things home for herself.
Things got out of hand one day. My Aunt complained that the aide was yelling at her and losing her temper. Therefore, I decided that I needed to replace her.
After hiring a new aide through another local healthcare agency, I fired the abuser and paid her up to date, including the entire last day. Wouldn’t you say that was fair?
Shortly after that day, the aide started calling my Aunt threatening her with a lawsuit. She said, “You are going to have a hell of a time!”
I tried to report this as elder abuse to the local authorities, but they told me that they couldn’t do anything unless she tried to hurt my Aunt.
Within a few weeks, my Aunt received a registered letter from Small Claims Court with a subpoena to appear in court.
The aide sued for two reasons: Being fired and for missed wages.
New York law allows employers to terminate employees without cause, as long as the termination is not based on discrimination.
However, the wage dispute needed to be resolved. Even though I paid the aide in full throughout the end of the day when I fired her, she still sued for missing wages. I felt she was just wanting to cause more harm to my Aunt.
The aide didn’t sue me. She sued my Aunt, who was 97 at the time. At that age and in her frail condition, there was no way my Aunt would survive going to court.
The New York Small Claims Court required an appearance in court by my Aunt because my Power of Attorney did not include litigation rights. That meant that I could not defend her case for her.
Okay, I can understand rules are rules. However, the court clerk's insistence that my Aunt had to appear was unacceptable. It was a bad reflection of how New York State treats the elderly.
When I told the clerk she was 97, she obnoxiously replied, “That doesn’t matter. If she is not here when we call her, she will be found guilty.”
To litigate on behalf of someone else, you need a “Power of Attorney” showing that they give you that right.
I purchased and downloaded a Durable Power of Attorney Form from a legal form website that I found through a Google search.
I brought my Aunt to the bank in her wheelchair so she could sign the form there and have it notarized.
Several lawyers told me to handle the case myself because they would have to charge me for waiting hours on end, numerous times, waiting for trial, as I was about to discover.
So now, with a POA, I can defend her case. It took seven visits to the court lasting more than a year.
Each time, there was only one Judge and hundreds of trials. I was sent home, again and again, with another court date, usually scheduled about two months later.
This whole thing dragged on for well over a year. I was thinking the court was just waiting for her to die.
If we had used an arbitrator, we could have had the case heard immediately. However, both parties have to agree on an arbitrator.
When one loses a court case, they can request a retrial. However, when using an arbitrator, both parties must accept the final decision.
The aide insisted on having a Judge because she wanted to avoid accepting an arbitrator’s final decision. Therefore, we kept having to go back every other month.
After seven rescheduled hearings and hours of waiting in the courtroom for the clerk to send us home again, I had reached my limit of frustration. Even though I was not dragging my Aunt in, I was still spending a lot of my time with all the trips, just waiting in the courtroom for the clerk to send us home again.
So, when the clerk once again rescheduled the case, I shouted for everyone to hear…
It's unacceptable to delay this over a year for a 98-year-old defendant! That's elder abuse!
Yes, she reached 98 by that time.
The courts don’t care how old one is, but evidently, I made an impression. The clerk asked me to wait, and she left the room. I suspected she went to talk to the Judge.
When she returned, she said with a very decisive voice, “The Judge will see you now.”
Finally, I had my day in court for my Aunt.
As I mentioned, she sued for being fired and for missing wages.
The Judge seemed angry that the first item was a lawsuit for being fired, and she discarded that suit since New York law allows firing someone without cause.
Then she asked the plaintiff to explain her suit for missing wages.
The aide made a fool of herself. She told the Judge she overheard me talking to my Aunt about her pay. She said I was cheap because I refused to raise her salary.
I was prepared to defend the missing wages to prove my case. I had a stack of bank statements three inches thick to show that I always paid the aide, and I presented this stack of papers to the Judge.
She never looked at it. I guess the thickness of it was enough for her, and the fact that I had it ready to show her was all she needed to see.
I won the case, but in a way, the aide succeeded too. She accomplished what she wanted. She wasted my time with many trips to the court and frustrated my elderly Aunt for over a year of her final days alive.
My Aunt died a few months later, but at least she knew we won her case, so that she could rest in peace.
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