Kennedy Family Feud May Be Ending

(AP)  According to a source close to the case, Joan Kennedy has reached a settlement with her children that calls for two trustees to manage her estate, with a guardian supervising her personal affairs.

The source says the settlement also calls for the former wife of U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy to enter an alcoholism treatment program.

Kennedy's three children, including U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., had been scheduled to appear in court Monday to ask a judge to appoint a permanent legal guardian to manage their mother's finances and to make decisions about her health. That hearing has now been canceled.

The guardian agreed to under the terms of the settlement will have less power than her children were originally seeking. The guardian ad litem will monitor Kennedy's finances and health and report to a judge, but will not have the power to make decisions for her.

The source also said her estate - including a $6.4 million oceanfront home on Cape Cod - will be held in a trust and managed by two trustees.

Neither the trustees nor the guardian ad litem are relatives.

Joan Kennedy's attorney, Hanson Reynolds, said his client will not have a permanent legal guardian managing her estate and making decisions for her. He declined to disclose further details of the settlement.

Augustus F. Wagner Jr., an attorney for the Kennedy children, wouldn't comment on the terms of the settlement.

"It was never the intention of the children to want to be the permanent guardians," said Wagner, a prominent Boston attorney who has been both a congressman and a judge.

Joan Kennedy, 68, has been arrested several times for drunken driving and gone through rehab repeatedly. In March, she was hospitalized with a concussion and a broken shoulder after a passer-by found her sprawled on a Boston sidewalk.

Word of a possible settlement was first reported Saturday by The Providence Journal. On Sunday, the Boston Herald reported that the settlement - reached Friday - calls for Joan Kennedy to enter alcohol rehab and take her Cape Cod home off the market. The newspaper said two court-appointed trustees would control her house and other assets.

Patrick Kennedy, 37, and his siblings - Kara Kennedy Allen, 45, and Edward M. Kennedy Jr., 44 - took temporary legal guardianship of their mother last year. They planned to seek permanent custody of her affairs on Monday.

Joan Kennedy didn't contest her children's bid for guardianship last July, when Barnstable Probate and Family Court Judge Robert Terry ruled that she was "incapable of taking care of herself by reason of mental illness."


By Michael Kunzelman