Senate committee reviews broad rewrite of guardianship and health-care agent language in SB 2297

The Senate Human Services Committee on Oct. 12 reviewed a near-complete rewrite of Senate Bill 2297 intended to clarify the order of decisionmakers when a patient lacks capacity and to use health-care directive definitions instead of probate definitions.

Christopher Dodson, legal counsel for the North Dakota Catholic Conference, told the committee he started at the top of the section because small edits to one sentence created cascading problems. Dodson said the draft replaces probate-code definitions of incapacity with the definition used in the health-care-directive statute and reorganizes the order of priority for decisionmakers so the text is clearer.

The rewrite, Dodson said, retains existing substance but “cleaned up a lot of stuff” so sentences read consistently and decisionmakers are listed at the start of subsections. He told the panel the intention of current law is that a guardian who is expressly authorized by court order to override a patient’s appointed health-care agent is the first priority, then the health-care agent, then other guardians or custodians — and…