Shannon Price Had The Right

Monocles down! Yesterday, it was reported that Gary Coleman and Shannon Price were not married at the time of his death. They divorced a couple of years ago. This bit of news made everybody raise a Spock brow while holding a black kitten, because the question came up if Shannon was authorized to make the decision to take Gary off life support since she wasn’t his wife at the time. The answer is: she was.

Apparently, Shannon did lie to the hospital when she told them he was his wife, but she did have the legal right to make medical decisions for Gary. The hospital had this to say: “Mr. Coleman had completed an Advanced Health Care Directive that granted Shannon Price permission to make medical decisions on his behalf if he was unable to do so. An Advanced Health Care Directive remains in effect regardless of a patient’s marital status, unless modified by the patient. It is a private medical document which the hospital does not have permission to release. However, we received permission to confirm that the document was in effect at the time of Mr. Coleman’s death.”

So Christopher Meloni and Mariska Hargitay don’t need to knock on Shannon Price’s door just yet (but they should wait in the car until further notice).