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The Will As An Implied Unilateral Arbitration Contract, E. Gary Spitko
The Will As An Implied Unilateral Arbitration Contract, E. Gary Spitko
Faculty Publications
A consensus has begun to develop in the case law, the academic commentary, and the statutory reform movement that a testator’s provision in her will mandating arbitration of any challenge to the will should not be enforceable against a beneficiary who has not agreed to the arbitration provision, at least where the will contestant, by her contest, seeks to increase her inheritance outside the will. Grounding this consensus is the widespread understanding that a will is not a contract. This Article seeks to challenge both the understanding that the will is not a contract and the opposition to enforcement of …
An Empirical Assessment Of The Potential For Will Substitutes To Improve State Intestacy Statutes, Mary Fellows, E. Gary Spitko, Charles Strohm
An Empirical Assessment Of The Potential For Will Substitutes To Improve State Intestacy Statutes, Mary Fellows, E. Gary Spitko, Charles Strohm
Faculty Publications
This Article uses an empirical study to test whether, in the absence of a will, beneficiary designations in will substitutes provide reliable evidence for approximating decedents' donative intent in an intestacy statute. No previous scholarship has explored the relationship between will-substitute beneficiary designations and intestacy statutes. We set out to investigate public attitudes about will substitutes and determine if the public prefers current law, which ignores will substitutes when determining the disposition of a decedent's property passing by intestate succession, or a statutory pattern that takes into account beneficiary designations found in a decedent's will substitutes. We are mindful that …