John Payne

It was a dark and stormy life, with intervals of sunshine and balmy breezes for Emerson and Sylvia.  However, nothing could have prepared them for the catastrophe that struck after forty years of a roller-coaster marriage.
Emerson had been a Marine who brought home scars on his back and psyche from Korea, when he married Sylvia.  After discharge, he became an FBI agent investigating organized-crime.  A pillar of moral rectitude, Sylvia never doubted Emerson’s sexual fidelity, but she was painfully aware that his first love and greatest loyalty were for The Bureau.
G-men did not make a lot of money, but Sylvia worked part-time editing children’s books so they had a comfortable home in Beverly Hills—Michigan, not California—and a modest seven-figure net worth by the time they reached the fateful age mentioned in the Beatles tune.  That was when their future was devastated.  It was a metaphorical earthquake that would have measured 7.2 on the Richter scale:  Emerson was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.  Sylvia swears to this day that she heard glass shattering and steel beams crashing when the diagnosis was pronounced.  The after-shock was almost as bad when Sylvia realized the financial implications of Emerson’s disease.
Nursing care was over $5,000 per month.  Today it is $8,000.  Then, as now, Emerson was very healthy.  The strength and endurance his time in the Marines had produced had been maintained by cross-country skiing, running, and rock-climbing into his 60s.  At 79, his strength seems undiminished despite near-total loss of mental capacity.
In the early days of Emerson’s illness, neurologists, and geriatric care managers helped them come to understand his condition and learn to find joy in their time together.  She spends much time with him and he seems to enjoy her company, although he thinks she is the mother of one of his friends and keeps asking her where Butch is.  Sylvia’s mental equilibrium was also greatly helped through expert legal counseling.
More ethereal than material, money was never Sylvia’s primary concern.  That did not prevent her from recognizing the financial catastrophe hovering over her like a cloud of slow-acting poison gas.  That cloud was dissipated by careful planning.  Garrison LawHouse PC orchestrated a comprehensive strategy using Emerson and Sylvia’s income and assets, health and long-term care insurance, VA benefits, Medicare, and Medicaid to protect Sylvia’s financial security.  Despite fifteen years of progressively higher care costs, their net worth has not been eroded and Sylvia looks forward to a rose-tinted financial future.
John B. Payne, at Garrison LawHouse, PC, has 35 years of Medicaid, tax, and estate-planning experience and nine years of post-secondary education.  Mr. Payne received his Juris Doctor, cum laude, from Detroit College of Law and an LL.M. in Taxation from Wayne State University School of Law.
Although it is thought of as a “boutique” practice, Elder Law requires broad expertise in estate, disability and tax planning, administrative law, litigation, government benefits, supplemental and long term health insurance issues, administration and management of trusts and estates, elder abuse and fraud recovery cases, and other legal areas.  It also requires great empathy and problem-solving skills.  John Payne developed his expertise over many years.  However, more than anything else, he listens to your concerns and respond to your needs.  From his offices in Dearborn and Pittsburgh, using state-of-the-art electronic communications, he assists clients throughout Michigan and Pennsylvania.