BusinessReport.com

Tom Gillen spends his days surrounded by his books, which now reside with him at his son Mike’s home near Lee High School.

An electric typewriter sits at his desk, loaded with a clean piece of paper. But it has been some time since Gillen, 89, has been able to type anything. It appears from his last entry that he believes he traveled to Washington to attend the Congressional hearings regarding the CIA and Valerie Plame Wilson. Upon his return, Gillen wrote, he contracted the flu and was hospitalized.

Such thoughts have caused Mike Gillen to limit his father’s television habits to the 5 p.m. news. Once, he returned home to find his father nearly inconsolable after an episode of Bonanza left him convinced that his younger brother had been kidnapped.

Mike Gillen has watched his father’s mental capacity slowly erode through the combination of old age and a head injury he suffered in August 2005. Now he is suing Chase Bank on his father’s behalf, arguing that the bank made loans to Tom Gillen and his then-wife that they could not afford to repay, including a second loan where Gillen did not have the capabilities to know what he was signing. Mike Gillen further contends that he approached bank management on multiple occasions, asking that the institution stop approving loans for his father, since he and a family friend were having to help his father make payments on the debt.

“How on God’s green earth can you in good conscience put them in a debt situation they cannot possibly repay?” Mike Gillen asks.

Chase Bank and its attorneys declined to comment for this story, but have filed a motion of summary judgment to have the case dismissed. “The opinion of one man, who was not even present at the time of the transaction and who is obviously biased, is not sufficient to overcome the heightened level of proof required to rescind this contract,” the defense argues in court documents supporting the request for dismissal.

The case, filed in the federal court’s Middle District in Baton Rouge, surrounds two loans issued to Tom Gillen and his then-wife, Ruth. The first was a $168,000 term loan from June 2003, in which the Gillens executed a promissory note and granted a mortgage to Chase. Defense documents indicate Gillen executed a Truth in Lending Disclosure statement, which included, among other information, the APR, finance charges and repayment schedule.

In August 2005, Mike Gillen was called to his father’s home because Tom Gillen had fallen, suffering a broken hip and a subdural hematoma, bleeding on the brain often caused by head injury. The fall left his father near death, Mike Gillen says, and resulted in several weeks of rehabilitation at Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center and Ollie Steele Burden Manor.

On Sept. 22, 2005, the Gillens entered into a $43,000 home equity line of credit agreement with Chase Bank. Defense documents again indicate that Gillen signed a disclosure statement and notice of right to cancel, while granting Chase a mortgage on his house.

The court documents include a statement from geriatric specialist Dr. Patrick Gahan indicating that Tom Gillen would not have had the mental capacity to understand what he was signing at the time the loan was executed. Mike Gillen and his attorney, David Koen, feel that Chase representatives should have realized something was amiss when the loan had to be closed at the nursing home where Tom Gillen was recovering. “This whole affair smacks of impropriety,” Koen says.

The defense, in support of its motion for summary judgment, indicated that Tom Gillen was of proper mind to act on his right to contract with the bank. “While this may be Michael Gillen’s opinion, the bank officers, two witnesses and a notary (who has an obligation to determine the capacity of the individual signing a document) all determined that Plaintiff was capable and had the capacity to contract.”

Shortly after the loan closed, Mike Gillen took his father in after Ruth Gillen indicated she could no longer take care of him. Mike Gillen, believing that his stepmother was continuing to seek loans for the couple, filed for divorce on his father’s behalf. Tom Gillen’s monthly income was not enough to pay on his debt, so his house was sold after the bank began seeking foreclosure. He came away with only his extensive library and some furniture. “Dad has gained nothing through this and lost everything,” Mike Gillen says.

The lawsuit seeks to have the loans rescinded and to have Chase Bank repay the benefits it has received from the loans. The suit also calls for the court to order Chase to cease lending in Louisiana, but the plaintiffs are not objecting to a defense motion to have that portion dismissed.

The defense contends that everything in the loan process was done correctly and that the laws under which Gillen is suing are not applicable to the loans. The hearing concerning the motion for summary judgment is set for June. No trial date for the case has been set.

Meanwhile, Tom Gillen spends the twilight of his life in a wheelchair, unable to walk since a second fall and a second broken hip. When asked about the situation with the bank, he fights to get out a sentence before pausing and starting a story he can’t finish about longtime friend Earl Long.

“Money is really what got us.”