Maryland's Leadership in Combating Elder Financial Abuse

July, 2026

Washington — As a quick follow-up to Part I in this series on litigation and advocacy, it's worth asking for Gemini AI's take (below) on how Maryland now compares to other states' efforts to protect the elderly from financial abuse.  The answers provide valuable context. 

Is Maryland a leader or follower compared to other states on this issue?

Maryland is considered a leader and a pioneer when it comes to combating elder financial abuse, particularly due to the specific civil remedies it introduced. 

While it was a "follower" in the chronological sense—enacting its SAFE Act in October 2021 after states like California, Florida, and Illinois had already established strong elder protection laws—Maryland has jumped to the forefront by enacting a uniquely robust framework.The state stands out as a national leader in several key ways:

• Pioneering Civil Remedies: Unlike states that rely solely on slow-moving criminal prosecutions, Maryland's SAFE Act empowers victims, guardians, trustees, and heirs to take immediate, direct civil action against abusers.
• Lower Evidentiary Hurdles: Maryland intentionally lowered the burden of proof required to demonstrate financial exploitation in court, making it far easier for families to hold wrongdoers accountable than in many other jurisdictions. [1]
• Comprehensive Penalties: Maryland allows for treble damages (up to three times the amount stolen), mandatory attorney fee recovery, and the ability to freeze or rescind illicit asset transfers. 
• The Project SAFE Coalition: Maryland is recognized for its unique public-private partnership called Project SAFE (Stop Adult Financial Exploitation). This coalition unites 16 different legal, financial, and government organizations—including the Maryland Attorney General and the Maryland Bankers Association—to actively train law enforcement and bank tellers to spot and report fraud in real-time. [1]

How much of this is attributable to those who requested a legislative remedy to the decision in Vess v. Price?

The passage of Maryland's SAFE Act is directly and heavily attributable to the advocacy surrounding Vess v. Price. The case served as the primary catalyst and case study that exposed the severe gaps in Maryland’s legal framework for handling elder financial exploitation. 

The legislative remedy requested by the advocates in Vess v. Price shaped the SAFE Act in several key ways:

1. The Catalyst for Senate Bill 702

The push for a statutory crackdown began directly as a reaction to Vess v. Price. Claudia Vess (the niece of the victim, Howard Vess) alongside legal researcher George Garner actively petitioned the Maryland General Assembly. Their formal written testimony for Senate Bill 702 explicitly cited Vess v. Price to demand an "overdue statutory crackdown" modeled after other states. This advocacy laid the groundwork for what eventually became the Maryland SAFE Act. [1]

2. Eliminating the "Procedural Standoff"

In Vess v. Price, an opportunistic individual allegedly used undue influence to make himself the sole beneficiary of an elderly man's estate. Because Maryland lacked direct civil remedies for financial exploitation at the time, the family was trapped in a six-year "procedural standoff" across three different courts.

• The Remedy: The advocates demanded a law that allowed families to bypass grueling estate battles. The SAFE Act directly answered this by establishing a cause of action that allows victims, guardians, and heirs to sue perpetrators directly in civil court for exploitation.

3. Lowering the Evidentiary Hurdles

The legal team in Vess v. Price faced immense difficulty navigating the rigid procedural motions required to prove fraud and fiduciary violations. The courts spent years looking at "time stamps and courthouse drop boxes" rather than the actual exploitation. [1]

• The Remedy: The advocates successfully argued that the burden of proof was too high for grieving families. The SAFE Act explicitly lowered these evidentiary hurdles so that courts could focus on the merits of the financial abuse rather than getting bogged down in procedural technicalities.

4. Stopping the "Jarndyce v. Jarndyce" Problem

During the legislative hearings, advocates compared Maryland’s elder abuse laws to Charles Dickens' fictional estate that was entirely depleted by its own legal bills. In Vess v. Price, the perpetrator used the estate's own funds to fight the family for years.

• The Remedy: To prevent abusers from out-spending their victims, the legislative remedy included mandatory attorney fee shifting and treble damages (triple the stolen amount). This ensured that families could afford to seek justice without seeing the entire estate consumed by legal fees.

Litigation and Advocacy, Part III: Protecting the Natural Environment

July, 2026

Lincoln — In 2019, the board of the Nebraska Environmental Trust appeared to be turning the fund into a pay-to-play scheme.  Large political contributions to the governor from those associated with the ethanol industry were followed by cancellation of NET-funded conservation projects to pay for $1.8 million in grants to for-profit companies to install ethanol blender pumps at their gas stations.  It also appeared as if the governor-appointed board was acting in violation of the state Open Meetings Act in making these and other decisions.  

Two of us who observed this filed suit against these actions, as citizens and taxpayers.  The board soon dropped the blender pump grants before the case could get to discovery. The court approved a settlement for OMA violations, which included rarely-awarded payment to plaintiffs for litigation expenses.  

In 2025 and 2026, the subsequent governor proposed, and the state legislature agreed, to transfer NET funds to nominally conservation-related funds in another agency, but then transfer like amounts from those accounts to the state general fund, to help balance the state's budget.  Again, we filed suit as citizens and taxpayers on grounds that this violated a 2004 constitutional amendment of Nebraska voters to use NET funds only for conservation, not as part of a deceptive money-laundering scheme that resulted in an overall reduction in conservation support, itself a violation of a statutory requirement that NET funds be used only to "complement", not supplant other efforts.  

Gemini AI provides its own explanation:

The Nebraska Legislature cannot use a two-step transfer process to move funds from the Nebraska Environmental Trust (NET) to the General Fund because doing so is a constitutional violation of voter intent and an illegal evasion of statutory restrictions.

Legal experts and courts view this multi-step process as a "shell game" that fails to erase the legal protections attached to the money at its source.

The core legal barriers that prevent the Legislature from utilizing this two-step workaround include:

1. The Legal Doctrine of "Substance Over Form"

In constitutional law, a government body cannot accomplish an illegal act simply by adding extra steps to the process. The Nebraska Constitution strictly mandates that a dedicated portion of state lottery proceeds go exclusively to the NET to "conserve, enhance, and restore" the environment. [1]

• Moving the money to an intermediate fund first does not "wash away" its constitutional identity.
• The legal restriction follows the money, meaning the funds remain constitutionally earmarked for environmental grants no matter how many hands or accounts they pass through. [1, 2]

2. Violating the Statutory Ban on "Direct Assistance"

The Nebraska Environmental Trust Act explicitly prohibits NET funds from being used to provide "direct assistance to regulatory programs" or to offset standard state agency operating budgets.

• The Loophole Attempt: The Legislature attempted to route NET cash into specific agency cash funds (such as water or agricultural funds), arguing that these funds do relate to the environment.
• The Reality: By using NET dollars to substitute for money those agencies would normally receive from the General Fund, the Legislature freed up state cash to use for unrelated general expenses.
• The Verdict: Courts have recognized this as a backdoor way to use environmental lottery money to balance the state’s general budget deficit, which directly violates statutory law. [1]

3. Protection of Voter-Created Trust Funds

The NET was created via citizen-led ballot initiatives in 1992 and 2004. Nebraska courts heavily protect voter intent. When citizens vote to tax or generate revenue for a highly specific purpose (like environmental preservation), the Legislature does not possess the authority to redirect those funds to general government spending, whether done in one step or twenty steps.

Current Legal Precedent

This exact two-step defense was rejected by a Lancaster County District Court judge in the summer of 2026. The court granted a temporary injunction blocking a $13.5 million transfer, agreeing with plaintiffs W. Don Nelson and Jon Oberg that the multi-tiered cash sweep was an illegal attempt to bypass constitutional protections.