Published Monday, November 24, 2003
Money Ignited Schiavo Dispute
Court records show a clash rooted in promises of shared malpractice awards.
By WILLIAM R. LEVESQUE
St. Petersburg Times
Valentine's Day, 1993.
Michael Schiavo sat by his brain-damaged wife, Terri, at a Largo nursing home as he studied for college classes. Schiavo had brought two dozen roses not long after a jury in a medical malpractice case awarded the couple about $1 million.
Terri Schiavo's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, walked in. An argument started. With an exchange of heated words, some involving that money, Schiavo's close relationship with the Schindlers ended.
Today, Schiavo and the Schindlers are combatants in the best known right-to-die case in the nation. They are divided by their hopes of Schiavo's recovery and their beliefs of whether she should live or die. But court records show that the origins of that decade-old dispute involved something far less critical than Schiavo's life.
It involved money.
Testimony in the guardianship case from 1993 and 2000 shows that the original family split came, in part, because the
Schindlers thought their son-inlaw owed them more than $10,000 in living expenses and had reneged on a promise to share his malpractice cash.
"I think one might conclude looking at the facts that a possible motivation on the part of the Schindlers is revenge," said Michael Schiavo's lawyer, George Felos, referring to the Schindlers' opposition to Schiavo's decision to pull his wife's feeding tube. "I certainly hope that's not true."
Bob Schindler said Saturday that the initial argument was more about how Schiavo reneged on promises to pay for continued therapy for their daughter, not about payment to the Schindlers.
"Felos wants to make it look like a money issue," Schindler said. "Our motivation was to make sure Terri would get the proper care."
He points to a July 1993 letter he wrote to Schiavo, in which he pleads with him to honor a commitment to pay for Schiavo's continued care.
"Even if I'm as bad as (Felos) paints me, that's no excuse for not treating Terri," Schindler said.
Schiavo has said his wife would not want to be kept alive by artificial means. Her feeding tube was pulled for six days before unprecedented intervention by lawmakers forced doctors to reinsert it Oct. 21.
Schiavo, often accused by the Schindlers of wanting his wife dead for her share of malpractice money, refuses to comment.
Today, his wife's money is all but exhausted by the long legal fight.
Once, the Schindlers and Schiavo were close. So close, in fact, that they lived together after Schiavo collapsed in 1990 from a potassium imbalance that stopped her heart, depriving her brain of oxygen.
Together, the Schindlers and Schiavo shared in financial difficulties and in the unending work of caring for her.
In some ways, Schiavo was treated as a son. He once brought a girlfriend home to meet the Schindlers, seeking their approval, and said they had encouraged him to date.
"I think I said he deserved to start a new life," Bob Schindler said in testimony in 1993.
He said he hoped his son-inlaw eventually would divorce his wife and start a new life.
At the medical malpractice trial against doctors who treated Schiavo in 1992, Mary Schindler spoke with admiration about Schiavo's attentiveness to her disabled daughter.
"He's there every day," she said. "He is loving, caring. I don't know of any young boy that would be as attentive. . . . He's just been unbelievable. And I know without him there is no way I could have survived all this."
In a jury verdict in that suit, Schiavo received more than $700,000, which was set aside for her continued care. Her husband received $300,000 for loss of consortium.
The Schindlers told lawyers they thought their son-in-law would share his $300,000 with them. Through the years, they said, they helped him financially. The Schindlers said they were owed more than $10,000.
Bob Schindler later testified that he vividly recalled Schiavo promising to give half of anything he won in court.
"I said to him we have to get something because of my tax situation," Schindler testified.
Mary Schindler also testified: "Michael would always talk to me about that. We were all in this together. We all had financial problems. Michael, Bob -we all did. It was a very stressful time. It was a very financially difficult time. He used to say, `Don't worry, mom. If I ever get any money from the lawsuit, I'll help you and dad.' "
Schiavo denied making such promises.
The Valentine's Day argument erupted three months after the jury verdict. The Schindlers and Schiavo disagree on much of what was said.
Schiavo told lawyers that Bob Schindler entered the room and immediately asked about his share of the money.
Schiavo said he lied and told Schindler no one was getting any money because he had decided to funnel all of it into his wife's trust fund, where he couldn't get it.
According to Schiavo, Bob Schindler responded by pointing his finger at his daughter and saying, "How much money is she going to give me?"
In testimony, Schindler's account is different. He told the court that a few weeks before Valentine's Day, he had asked Schiavo if he remembered their "agreement" to share his part of the jury award. Schindler said Schiavo told him he'd get back to him on the matter, but never did.
Until Valentine's Day.
Schindler testified that he asked Schiavo: "Have you reconciled how we're going to settle this thing?"
When Schiavo told him that he planned to give all the money to the trust fund, Schindler said he responded: "Michael, you made an agreement with my wife and myself that you were going to share that money with us."
Schindler testified he also felt dissatisfied because he and his wife thought Schiavo was reneging on paying for continued therapy for their daughter.
The Schindlers said they thought Schiavo would buy a house where the Schindlers could stay with their daughter to care for her. They said he refused.
Within months, the Schindlers filed a challenge to replace Schiavo as their daughter's guardian, engaging a decade-long legal battle.
In 1998, Schiavo moved to have his wife's feeding tube pulled, saying she could not recover. Her parents disagreed, saying she might improve with therapy.
Pinellas-Pasco Judge George Greer concluded in a 2000 ruling ordering Terri Schiavo's feeding tube removed that the argument was about money.
"It is clear to this court that (the argument) was predicated upon money and the fact that Mr. Schiavo was unwilling to equally divide his . . . award with Mr. and Mrs. Schindler," Greer wrote. "Regretably, money overshadows this entire case and creates potential of conflict of interest for both sides."