It’s been almost nine months since mom died and I am still trying to obtain copies of her medical records from Woodland Terrace. The attorney for Woodland Terrace was notified by Mathis & Murphy, P.A. on April 10th that I am now (finally) officially recognized by the State of Florida to be the legal representative of Kathleen A. Gagne. That was over three weeks ago and, as far as I know, we have yet to receive a response from them of any kind. (Mathis & Murphy, P.A. is the second law firm I’ve had working on this.)
At the beginning of this week I was informed that the lawyer at Mathis & Murphy who had been working on the case had left their firm. The case is now being handled by Kelly Mathis himself. Upon being informed of this, I sent this email as a reply to him:
Dear Kelly,
Yes, on April 10th — almost exactly one month after Jill told me to wait one week — Jill sent me a copy of an “ORDER ON ADMINISTRATION AND APPOINTING PERSONAL REPRESENTATIVE” from the Seventh Judicial Court for Volusia County, Florida, Probate Division, which she said she had forwarded to the attorney for Woodland Terrace.
I asked Jill what the next step was and she said we should allow two weeks for the attorney from Woodland Terrace to provide my mother’s medical records to your firm.
Two weeks later — on April 22nd — I asked Jill how much longer we should wait for a response. She replied and said that she had contacted the Woodland Terrace attorney and he told her, “we should have something by the end of this week,” which I interpreted to mean the 25th or 26th.
On the 25th I wrote Jill and got no response. I waited until yesterday, the 29th, to try again. She didn’t respond to that email, so this morning (April 30th) I sent a follow-up and copied Ms. Workman, who called me this morning to let me know Jill was no longer with your firm.
My mother died eight months and three weeks ago, and I have not made it a single day since then without breaking down at least once in tears over the intolerable, insulting, unfair, and despicable way her life ended much too prematurely.
Since the day she was first institutionalized — December 1, 2011 — I have spent countless hours working on her behalf, desperately trying to get just one person to care, to follow through on his or her promises, to do the right thing. Now she is dead, but I refuse to stop fighting for her.
I look forward to working with you, and I have no reservations at all if you need me to go through every step again. I will gladly give you every detail you need.
Thank you sincerely,
David Vincent Gagne