Sonoma County, Calif., will pay $600,000 to settle a lawsuit with Clay
Greene and the estate of his late longtime partner, Harold Scull.
According to the National Center for Lesbian Rights, in 2008, after Scull
suffered a fall, the county separated the Sebastopol couple, canceled
their lease, auctioned their possessions, took their cats, ignored their
mutual power-of-attorney documents, forced them into separate nursing
homes, and never let the two men see each other alone again. Scull died in
August 2008.
The county said settling the case was the cheaper option for disposing of
the matter and that officials’ actions had been based in part on concerns
that there was domestic abuse in the relationship.
“What Clay and Harold lost can never be replaced, but this settlement
brings a measure of justice to their story,” said NCLR staff attorney Amy
Todd-Gher. “Even as we celebrate this victory, however, we are deeply
troubled that the County of Sonoma continues to refuse to take
responsibility for their egregious misconduct and violations of the law in
this case. We urge every citizen of Sonoma County to demand more oversight
of the Public Guardian’s office. They need to be watched.”
Plaintiff Janette Biggerstaff, the executor of Scull’s estate, said the
domestic-abuse allegations amounted to “the county spreading such terrible
lies about Clay.”
The lawsuit alleged elder abuse, elder financial abuse, breach of
fiduciary duty, intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress
and false imprisonment, among other things.
“Harold and Clay may have seen each other, by happenstance, once or at
most twice before Harold died — not in the context of being able to see
each other privately or in response to either’s requests, but on one or
possibly two brief random public encounters in the presence of county
personnel,” said NCLR Legal Director Shannon Minter.
The cats’ situation ended badly as well.
“County officials drove up to Clay’s home one day and took the cats away,
over his anguished protests, without explaining to him what they were
doing or where they were taking them,” Minter said. “It was completely
traumatizing for him, and he still talks about it almost daily. The cats
were taken by county officials to Harold at (the) Hill House (nursing
facility), where one cat died shortly afterwards because of the trauma of
the move, and the other cat ‘ran away’ and was never seen again shortly
after Harold died. So, the short answer is that both cats were sadly lost
as a result of the county’s callous actions.”
Minter said he wasn’t sure if Scull had been allowed to keep the cats in
his room at the nursing home or if they lived elsewhere at the facility.
By Rex Wockner
