A significant portion of the toxic saga between former NFL player Michael Oher and the Tuohy family was over Friday as a Tennessee judge ended the conservatorship agreement with the Memphis couple.
Taken in while in high school, Oher contested the arrangement and is still in a dispute over the financial gains the Tuohys received from his story that was made into a movie, “The Blind Side.”
Sandra Bullock won an Oscar for her depiction of Leigh Anne Tuohy in the film.
The agreement that allowed Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy to control Oher’s finances was reached in 2004 when he was 18. Oher signed the conservatorship agreement and lived with the couple while colleges recruited him as a star high school football player. Shelby County Probate Court Judge Kathleen Gomes terminated the deal, allowing Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy to control Oher’s finances.
Disbelief
“I cannot believe it got done,” Gomes reportedly said.
In Tennessee, conservatorship takes away people’s power to make decisions for themselves and is commonly used in medical disability cases. However, according to his petition, the judge was disturbed that Oher’s conservatorship was approved “despite the fact that he was over 18 years old and had no diagnosed physical or psychological disabilities.”
Gomes said in her 43-year career, she had never seen a conservatorship agreement reached with someone not disabled. However, Gomes did not dismiss the case.
Oher wants the Tuohys to provide a financial accounting of income they may have received from the agreement and use of his name, image, and likeness for lying that the agreement meant the Tuohys were adopting him.
Last month, news broke that Oher filed a petition in Shelby County, Tennessee, probate court alleging that Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy adopting him was a lie concocted by the family as a get-rich scheme. Instead, he alleges they executed a bait-and-switch, taking Oher into their home as a high school student but never adopting him.
Differing Perspectives
Instead, he claims that less than three months after his 18th birthday in 2004, the couple misled him into signing a document that made them his conservators. The agreement granted them the legal power to make business deals in his name.
However, the Tuohys said the conservatorship was the tool chosen to comply with NCAA rules that would have kept Oher from attending the University of Mississippi. Sean Tuohy was a standout basketball player at Ole Miss.
“When it became clear that the Petitioner could not consider going to the University of Mississippi (” Ole Miss”) as a result of living with the Respondents, the NCAA made it clear that he could attend Ole Miss if he was part of the Tuohy family in some fashion,” the Tuohys said in a reported Sept. 14 court filing.
The Tuohys also contend that Oher’s 2011 book “I Beat the Odds” reveals that he knew they were appointed his conservators and he was not adopted.
