Capacity Assessment and the Law: Problems and Solutions
Preface -- Contents -- List of Abbreviations -- Chapter 1: The Challenges Presented by the Assessment of Legal Capacity -- 1 Introduction -- 2 Terminology -- 3 Challenges to Assessing Capacity -- 3.1 Mentally Disabling Conditions -- 3.2 The Impact of Ageing -- 3.3 Societal and Familial Perceptions -- 3.4 The Legal and Medical Tension -- 3.5 No Uniform Approach -- 3.6 Education and Ongoing Training -- 3.7 Cost -- 4 Conclusion -- References -- Cases -- Chapter 2: Therapeutic Jurisprudence -- 1 Introduction -- 2 Definitions -- 3 The Utility of Therapeutic Jurisprudence -- 3.1 Incompetency Labelling and Individual Autonomy -- 3.2 The Dualistic Nature of Autonomy and Protection -- 3.3 The Neutral Fact Finder -- 3.4 The Least Restrictive Alternative -- 4 Limitations of Therapeutic Jurisprudence -- 4.1 The Identity Dilemma -- 4.2 The Definitional Dilemma -- 4.3 The Dilemma of Empirical Indeterminism -- 4.4 The Rule of Law Dilemma -- 4.5 The Balancing Dilemma -- 5 Application to the Capacity Context -- 5.1 Testamentary Acts -- 5.2 Supported and Substitute Decision-Making -- 6 Conclusion -- References -- Chapter 3: Legal Capacity -- 1 Introduction -- 2 The Nature of Legal Capacity -- 2.1 Financial and Testamentary Capacity -- 2.2 Capacity to Make Lifestyle/Health Decisions -- 3 Assessing Capacity -- 3.1 The Presumption of Capacity -- 3.2 Cognitive and Functional Capacity -- 3.3 Decisional and Executional Capacity -- 3.4 The Functional, Status and Outcome Approaches -- 3.5 A Fixed or Sliding Threshold -- 3.6 The Legal and Medical Intersection -- 4 Principles of Capacity Assessment -- 4.1 Autonomy, Protection and Beneficence -- 4.2 Rationality -- 4.3 Ethical Considerations -- 5 Select Models of Capacity Assessment -- 5.1 The Capacity Assessment Toolkit -- 5.2 The Six Step Capacity Assessment Process -- 5.3 Standardised Tests
