Conservatorship of Ribal CA4/3

FACTS

Ribal and Nguyen met in the 1970’s. At that time, Ribal was married and the father of two children. In 1983, Ribal and his wife separated. They later divorced. That same year, Nguyen moved into Ribal’s home. However, Ribal and Nguyen kept their respective financial assets and accounts separate. In 2008, Ribal executed a durable power of attorney appointing Nguyen as his attorney-in-fact. At trial, Nguyen acknowledged that he had assumed the obligation to act solely in Ribal’s interest in exercising his authority under the power of attorney. In

2 January 2010, Ribal and Nguyen filed a declaration of domestic partnership with the State of California. (In re Domestic Partnership of Ribal and Nguyen (Mar. 4, 2015, G049594) [nonpub. opn.].) Laura Tiano, Ribal’s daughter, testified that in the late 1990’s she noticed her father began to display signs of dementia. According to Tiano, Ribal “was forgetful . . ., his speech was starting to get repetitive,” and “[h]e had some challenges organizing himself.” Even Nguyen admitted that in 2006 he noticed Ribal had become forgetful, a symptom he “attributed . . . to . . . Alzheimer’s” disease. Nguyen also acknowledged that in 2008, due…