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Moving Forward By Looking Back: The Retroactive Application Of Obergefell, Lee-Ford Tritt Dec 2016

Moving Forward By Looking Back: The Retroactive Application Of Obergefell, Lee-Ford Tritt

UF Law Faculty Publications

The recent Supreme Court decision of Obergefell v. Hodges has forever altered American jurisprudence. Not only did this decision make same-sex marriage legal in all fifty states, but it also required states to recognize same-sex marriages from other states in accordance with the 14th Amendment. The Court’s holding in Obergefell raises a fundamental question with serious legal and financial significance: when exactly do these once unrecognized marriages legally begin? And to what extent must courts apply Obergefell retroactively? The stakes are high and substantive financial effects are pending on the answer to this question — for, with marriage, comes wide-ranging …


The Will As An Implied Unilateral Arbitration Contract, E. Gary Spitko Oct 2016

The Will As An Implied Unilateral Arbitration Contract, E. Gary Spitko

Florida Law Review

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 his contest, seeks to increase his 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 a will is not a contract and the opposition to enforcement of …


Trust Term Extension, Reid Kress Weisbord Mar 2016

Trust Term Extension, Reid Kress Weisbord

Florida Law Review

Over the last thirty years, most jurisdictions in the United States have repealed or abrogated the Rule Against Perpetuities, which prohibits perpetual donor control over property. This, in turn, has led estate planning practitioners to consider whether a trust created to comply with the Rule could, after the Rule’s repeal, be extended in perpetuity to provide for future generations of the settlor’s descendants upon petition of the trustee. Trust term extension in this context implicates fundamental questions about the purpose of a trust: For whose benefit—the beneficiaries’, the settlor’s, or the trustee/fiduciary’s—does the trust exist? This Article argues that the …