Schiavo clash is rooted in cash
The dispute between Michael Schiavo and his in-laws began when Bob and Mary Schindler said he owed them money, court records show.
By WILLIAM R. LEVESQUE, Times Staff Writer
Published November 23, 2003
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-in-law 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,"...snip
http://www.sptimes.com/2003/11/23/Tampabay/Schiavo_clash_is_root.shtml Pinellas-Pasco Judge George Greer concluded in a 2000 ruling ordering Mrs. 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."
Yep. And the Schindlers figured if they couldn't get the $700,000, then neither would Michael.
Out of all the civil lawsuits they filed (where Michael spent the bulk of the money defending), I don't believe the Schindlers won any. All they did was add five years to Terri's ordeal, while shamelessly exposing their daughter's intimate hospital life to the public via interviews and videos of her contorted face and lifeless body.
Michael's critics always fail to acknowledge that he offered in 1998, in writing, to donate all the remaining money in Terri's trust fund to charity if Terri's parents would honor her wish and allow her to die. They refused.
Judge Greer's comment two years later about a "conflict of interest for both sides" is slightly misplaced. In my opinion.