Is it legal to serve any legal documents to a person with dementia without their POA present?

Your state's law, and the US Constitution, have procedural rules that protect people who have diminished capacity. Your question indicates several problems that the people at the Court may not be aware of, as they process the care provider's claim. The most efficient way to learn about your mother's rights is to hire an attorney who knows civil court procedures, collections law, and who can understand your mother's needs and disability. The attorney should be able to gather information from your mother's physician to resolve the case.

If you cannot afford to help your mother with private legal services, you may be able to get help from a staff attorney at a legal services agency.

Also consider hiring a geriatric care manager, who works for you and your mother to make sure that appropriate care is established and not interrupted. The GCM specializes in finding programs and resources that fit the needs of each individual. There may be sources of payment and other resources available to you that can prevent this serious situation from arising again.

Working with the attorney you select, the GCM could be a key to resolving the current problem.

This is a tangled web. You need the counsel of an attorney immediately.

See an attorney who may be able to have the case dismissed for "Abuse of Process". However, that will not settle the issues with the care home, they may be able to re-file the case. It is not uncommon when a facility is discovered to do wrong they take an aggresive legal course, because it often holds true, the best defense is a good offense.
My concern would be to get the patient out quickly to a place that accepts SSI patients. Document. Call a patient's rights advocate.

I just spent some time checking on service of process on persons with dementia and found nothing in the USC; checked Michigan General Court Rules as well, as I'm more familiar with them, and also found nothing on point.

This was surprising as I really did expect some results addressing the issue of service of process on someone who may or may not understand what the pleadings or documents meant.

I could make some inferences based on general legal knowledge, such as the care home administration "knew or had knowledge" of your mother's dementia and therefore should have involved your sister as attorney-in-fact pursuant to the DPOA. But there are some really iffy issues here and I have to agree that the best course of action, not only for the issue of service of process but for what also appears to be improper action, is an elder law attorney.

I wish you luck; this sounds like a situation in which your mother's rights were abused by the care home.

If you need guidance on finding an attorney, just post back.

I'm also hoping that one of the resident legal experts will opine on this issue.

Mr. Roberts, thanks for stepping in to offer guidance on this issue.

The facility does NOT want your mom as a resident. Really get her moved out ASAP as what their next step will likely be is that they get the court to do an emergency ward of the state placement on mom and she is moved to a NH with a low bed count (so they need to fill beds at any cost) which may not be in your city or even county. Family does not have to be notified either.....mom has gone from one with a DPOA to a mom with a court appointed guardian. If all this goes nuclear, you will be fighting both the facility & it's debt collection agents and the judge & the guardian the judge appointed.

Remember to get all of moms medications as they have been likely done in 90 day packs and Medicare &/or Medicaid will not pay for a double dip. Take zippies to put meds in & a sharpie marker to notate info. Meds may be in a locked cart or closet so you have to deal with DON (could be not nice) or floor nurse.

If you all are just dealing with the local NH and their inept biz office, you need to send whatever correspondence to the corporate HQ if it's a chain or to the president of the board if it's an independent NH. Fax & certified mail with the return registered receipt (acm & RRR maybe $ 8.00 fir both @ uspo)

One would think since a person who has Dementia cannot sign legal documents, therefore they cannot be served with legal documents. Could it be that the SSI didn't have the POA's address upon where to serve such documents? Guess it depends on State law what is considered "being served".

I would check with an Elder Law attorney.

my friend's sister's husband was trying to serve divorce papers to her filing for complete custody of their daughter that she - my friend, her sister - already had been given of by social services, with sister being under mental health care, living in one of their apartments, but not doing well and wanting to put her in a group home but she not wanting to go so they already wanting to do guardianship proceedings so they - well, family - not wanting her to be served with divorce papers before they could get that done - so they whisked her off into hiding so she couldn't be served so then they wanted friend's address to mail it to her for her to take to her which she wasn't going to do but they didn't get it before they were able to go to court for the guardianship proceedings and get that done, with her brother taking that, since she couldn't because it would be conflict of interest with her having custody of her daughter, and proceeding to have transported by sheriff to the group home, with then her husband not knowing where that was or the address - because - and this is the key - that then with her having a guardian - she could not be served any papers without the guardian - so they just dropped all that, which is what led us to believe - nobody ever actually saw them - that they were filing for full custody of the daughter, also since they couldn't serve her directly anymore they proceeded to go ahead and just file and serve on friend - sister - who has custody of daughter/niece - for it; however, since they weren't married when she was born it had never even been determined that she even was his daughter so had to get that established first, if in fact would be, which it was, so now we get to have the actual court date but now turns out supposedly she could only be ordered to the group home for a certain length of time, like so many months, which should be up now before the court date, but now with guardian, she can only live where he says but not sure she can go back to apt. like she wants to and not sure she can actually stay at the group home, so what is an unlawful detainer? She is also on SSI

but did they know she had a POA but then wouldn't she have had to have been the one who signed her into the care home; my friend also has a mom in one as well with Alzheimer's, which they knew was the reason she was being placed there and think she had to sign even though she doesn't have POA but she is rep payee for her Social Security but if they're refusing that payment; I don't think I realized she was having to pay it directly or that you could do that; think I'd always just thought they took it directly. Who's been overcharging? the care facility? how? oh, dil also got a notice from the court stating she was being charged lawyer and court fees for not showing up to court after getting a letter from lawyer saying they were filing for a delay but never hearing when - or if - it got done and if so, when new court date was; she got the lawyer letter the day before the original court date was scheduled but to get back to the main issue; know the mental health definitely wanted the guardianship in place before she got served with the divorce papers because then she definitely wouldn't be supposed to be served with them

ABUSE OF PROCESS is a legal term. Online search it if you want to be informed, anywhere in the U.S. The term does not specifically pertain to improper service of process, but may include that issue. It pertains to using the judicial process to to attain a goal in an illegal manner. If this was done, hire an attorney as was suggested.