For the purposes of this chapter, the term:
(1) “Alternate standby guardian” means a person with all the rights, responsibilities, and qualifications of a standby guardian who acts as the standby guardian if the current or originally designated standby guardian repudiates the designation, becomes incapacitated, or dies.
(2) “Attending clinician” means a licensed physician or licensed nurse practitioner who:
(A) Has primary responsibility for the treatment and care of a designator;
(B) Shares the responsibility for the treatment and care of a designator, or is acting on behalf of the licensed physician or licensed nurse practitioner who has primary responsibility for the treatment and care of the designator; or
(C) Is familiar with the designator's medical condition in cases where no licensed physician or licensed nurse practitioner has the responsibility for the treatment and care of a designator.
(3) “Child” means a person under 18 years of age.
(4) “Consent” means a written authorization signed by the designator.
(5) “Court” means the Domestic Relations Branch of the Family Division of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.
(6) “Debilitation” means those periods when a person cannot care for that person's minor child as a result of a chronic condition caused by physical illness, disease, or injury from which, to a reasonable degree of probability, the designator may not recover.
(7) “Designation” means the written naming of a standby guardian by the designator.
(8) “Designator” means a custodial parent, including a person other than a parent who has physical custody of a child and who has been awarded legal custody or guardianship by a court, who has been diagnosed, in writing, by a licensed clinician to suffer from a chronic condition caused by injury, disease, or illness from which, to a reasonable degree of probability, the designator may not recover.
(9) “Determination of incapacity” means a written determination made by the attending clinician that, to a reasonable degree of certainty, a designator is chronically and substantially unable to understand the nature and consequences of decisions concerning the care of a minor child as a result of a mental or organic impairment and is consequently unable to care for the minor child.
(10) “Incapacity” means a chronic and substantial inability, as a result of a mental or organic impairment, to understand the nature and consequences of decisions concerning the care of a minor child, and a consequent inability to care for the minor child.
(11) “Parent” means the biological parent or adoptive mother or father of a child.
(12) “Standby guardian” means a person named by the designator to assume the duties of a legal custodian of a child upon the occurrence of a triggering event.
(13) “Triggering event” means any of the following 3 events:
(A) The designator's debilitation, with the designator's written acknowledgement of debilitation and consent to commencement of the standby guardianship;
(B) The designator's incapacity as determined by an attending clinician; or
(C) The designator's death.
CREDIT(S)
(June 25, 2002, D.C. Law 14-152, § 2, 49 DCR 4248.)
HISTORICAL AND STATUTORY NOTES
Legislative History of Laws
For Law 14-152, see notes following § 16-4801.