The conservatorship signed by Michael Oher when he was 18 that allowed the Tuohys to make medical and financial decisions for him is under scrutiny.
— In 2004, when Michael Oher was a coveted college football recruit, the 18-year-old high schooler agreed in court to allow the Memphis couple he lived with to make decisions for him about signing contracts and any medical issues.
Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy had taken in Oher, who had been in the Tennessee foster care system and at one point lived on the streets. The judge-approved agreement, called a conservatorship, was made with the permission of Oher’s biological mother and inked about two months before Oher signed to play offensive line for Ole Miss, where Sean Tuohy had been a standout basketball player.
Nineteen years later, Oher has asked for the agreement to end in a probate court filing accusing the Tuohys of enriching themselves at his expense and lying to him by having him sign papers making them his conservators rather than his adoptive parents. Oher, who played eight NFL seasons, claims the Tuohys never took legal action to assume custody before he turned 18, though he was told to call them « Mom » and « Dad. »
The demand by Oher, whose life story was turned into the Oscar-nominated film « The Blind Side, » has led to scrutiny of the Tuohys and of the agreement itself, with one expert questioning how a judge approved it.
« There are a lot of not just unusual, but shocking and maybe never before seen things, for even attorneys experienced in this area, » said Victoria Haneman, a professor of trusts and estates at the Creighton University School of Law.
Now 37, Oher seeks a full accounting of assets, considering his life story produced millions of dollars, though he says he received nothing from the movie. He accuses the Tuohys of falsely representing themselves as his adoptive parents, saying he only discovered in February that the conservatorship provided him no familial relationship to them.
The Tuohys said they loved Oher like a son and supported him when he lived with them and when he was in college. They are devastated by accusations by Oher, who has been estranged from them for about a decade, their lawyers say.
In Tennessee, a conservatorship removes power from a person to make decisions for themselves, and it is often used in the case of a medical condition or disability.
