Bruce Llewellyn’s Health Care Dispute

Bruce Llewellyn, worth over $150 million, passed away on May 7, 2010, at the age of 80. The following is a summary of Llewellyn’s final years, which involved disputes about his medical treatment:

• In 2007, Llewellyn’s wife admitted him to a nursing home for rehabilitation.  When doctors said he was well enough to return home, his wife disagreed.
• Others close to the situation state that Llewellyn clearly wanted to leave the nursing home and felt that his wife had left him in the nursing home to die.
• Eventually, Llewellyn convinced three friends to serve as his guardians.  The guardians moved Llewellyn to an apartment.  
• In 2008, doctors suggested that Llewellyn needed a feeding tube, but Llewellyn’s wife contested the advice, claiming that it violated Llewellyn’s living will.
• In 2009, Llewellyn’s wife asked a court to intervene and order Llewellyn’s guardians to remove the feeding tube and honor the living will.  The court declined, citing to the authority of the guardians.  

According to Benjamin Weiser, The Last Days of Bruce Llewellyn, NY Times, May 7, 2010,  “[t]he Llewellyn case . . . serves as a primer on the myriad complications that can occur when a person . . . loses the ability to fully articulate his needs. Factors like money or marital discord — there were both in the Llewellyn case — further complicate the issue.”

See Benjamin Weiser, The Last Days of Bruce Llewellyn, NY Times, May 7, 2010. 

Special thanks to Joel Dobris (Professor of Law, UC Davis School of Law) for bringing this to my attention.