In re Glasser, 2006 WL 510096 (N.J. Ch. Div. 2006)

The New Jersey Superior Court, Chancery Division analyzes an alleged incapacitated person’s contacts with New Jersey and public policy of New Jersey to rule that New Jersey has primary jurisdiction over an alleged incapacitated person in an inter-state guardianship dispute.

In the unpublished Chancery Division opinion of In re Glasser, 2006 WL 510096 (N.J. Ch. Div. 2006), the court was presented with a contested action in which a daughter had filed a guardianship action with respect to her mother, Lillian Glasser, in Texas, and then another relative and the county Board of Social Services filed a guardianship action with respect to Mrs. Glasser in New Jersey. The Glasser court was confronted with a motion by the daughter to either dismiss or stay the New Jersey actions because of the earlier-filed Texas action.

In this “hotly contested” litigation, the court contrasted Mrs. Glasser’s ties to New Jersey with her ties to Texas. The Glasser case provides a detailed discussion of a court’s jurisdiction in guardianship cases, as well as related issues, such as the concept of “domicile.”

As the Glasser court noted, “New Jersey has a strong public policy favoring the disposition of incapacity matters in the alleged incapacitated person’s state of domicile.”

“Domicile” is defined as,

the relation which the law creates between an individual and a particular locality or country. In a strict legal sense, the domicile of a person is the place where he has his true, fixed, permanent home and principal establishment, and to which, whenever he is absent, he has the intention of returning, and from which he has no present intention of moving....

After noting that (1) Mrs. Glasser’s contacts with New Jersey were significantly greater than her contacts with Texas; and (2) New Jersey public policy strongly favors adjudicating incapacity issues in the state of domicile, the Glasser court denied the daughter’s motion to either dismiss or stay the New Jersey action.