Estates and Trusts Commons^™

The New Family Freedom, Emily J. Stolzenberg

Boston College Law Review

In family law, “autonomy” has traditionally meant freedom from state interference in one’s intimate life. This Article describes an emergent, libertarian vision of autonomy as property rights that also demands freedom from other family members. This conception, “choice about obligations,” holds redistribution of resources between intimates to be illegitimate unless the richer party “chose” to take on financial obligations ex ante by ceremonially marrying or formally contracting. But as more people conduct their intimate lives outside these legal institutions, choice about obligations increasingly collides with another, more fundamental, family law principle: the imperative to “privatize dependency,” i.e., to ...

A Pro Debtor And Majority Approach To The "Automatic Stay" Provision Of The Bankruptcy Code—In Re Cowen Incorrectly Decided, Claudia A. Restrepo

Boston College Law Review

On February 27, 2017, in In re Cowen, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit held that only affirmative actions to either obtain possession or exercise control over property of the bankruptcy estate constitute violations of the automatic stay provision. In doing so, the court concluded that the passive retention of an asset that was acquired pre-petition was not a violation of the automatic stay, and that the creditor had no obligation to relinquish the asset to the bankruptcy estate. This Comment argues that the Tenth Circuit misinterpreted the automatic stay provision of the Bankruptcy Code, disregarding ...

Keep Suing All The Lawyers: Recent Developments In Claims Against Lawyers For Aiding & Abetting A Client’S Breach Of Fiduciary Duty, Katerina P. Lewinbuk

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

Lawyers have increasingly become subject to liability under various legal theories, ranging from traditional legal malpractice or negligence liability claims to various third-party actions. Most recently, state and federal courts across the country have recognized attorney liability for aiding and abetting a client’s breach of fiduciary duty. This Article will address the current status of the cause of action for a lawyer’s aiding and abetting her client’s breach of fiduciary duty, explain the commonalities and distinguish nuances as outlined by particular states, examine recent decisions by federal courts that have recognized the cause of action, and culminate ...

The Limited Duties Of Lawyers To Protect The Funds And Property Of Nonclients, Vincent R. Johnson

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

Issues arise daily in law practice about the duties owed by lawyers to nonclients with respect to funds or property entrusted to them. In resolving those issues, care must be exercised when interpreting state versions of Model Rule 1.15, the American Bar Association’s pattern ethics rule on safekeeping of funds and property. Otherwise, a lawyer’s duties to third persons may too readily encroach on the performance of obligations owed to clients, as well as on the legitimate interests of lawyers themselves.

As numerous authorities have recognized, lawyers are obliged to protect the property interests of third persons ...

Borrowing In The Shadow Of Death: Another Look At Probate Lending, David Horton

William & Mary Law Review

“Fringe” lending has long been controversial. Three decades ago, demand for subprime credit soared, and businesses started to offer high-interest rate cash advances, such as tax refund anticipation loans, payday loans, and pension loans. These products have sparked intense debate and are subject to a maze of rules.

However, in Probate Lending, published in the Yale Law Journal, a coauthor and I examined a form of fringe lending that has gone largely unnoticed: firms that pay lump sums in return for an heir or beneficiary’s interest in a pending decedent’s estate. Capitalizing on a California law that requires ...

A Social Welfare Theory Of Inheritance Regulation, Mark Glover

Utah Law Review

The law of succession grants donors broad freedom to decide how to distribute their property upon death. It does so in hopes of increasing social welfare in two general ways. First, freedom of disposition generates socially beneficial estate planning decisions. In particular, donors are in the best position to evaluate their own specific circumstances and to make decisions that, on the whole, produce the greatest utility from the transfer of their estates. Second, the donor’s autonomy over estate planning decisions incentivizes socially beneficial behavior, such as productivity during the life of the donor. Because the law views freedom of ...

Navajo Nation V. Department Of The Interior, Jaclyn R. Van Natta

Public Land and Resources Law Review

In Navajo Nation v. Department of the Interior, the Navajo Nation challenged the Department of the Interior’s 2001 and 2008 water allocation guidelines and asserted that under NEPA and the APA the guidelines violated the Navajo Nation’s water rights. The Navajo Nation also asserted a breach of trust claim against the United States. After nearly a decade of attempted settlement negotiations, the Navajo Nation reasserted its complaints. The District Court for the District of Arizona denied the Navajo Nation’s motions, and the Navajo Nation appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which determined the Navajo Nation ...

Using Empirical Studies As A Basis For Updating Intestacy Laws, Sergio Pareja

Sergio Pareja

The principal goal of any intestacy statute is to determine the probable intent of individuals who die without a will. Professor Wright and Ms. Sterner analyze 493 wills that were probated in Escambia and Alachua Counties, Florida, in 2013. This blog post reviews their study as well as Wright and Sterner's final analysis. Pareja adds, new statutes, if properly considered, should pay attention to gender, race, and class differences that surfaced in the authors’ study

Using Empirical Studies As A Basis For Updating Intestacy Laws, Sergio Pareja

Faculty Scholarship

The principal goal of any intestacy statute is to determine the probable intent of individuals who die without a will. Professor Wright and Ms. Sterner analyze 493 wills that were probated in Escambia and Alachua Counties, Florida, in 2013. This blog post reviews their study as well as Wright and Sterner's final analysis. Pareja adds, new statutes, if properly considered, should pay attention to gender, race, and class differences that surfaced in the authors’ study

Promoting Retirement Security For Low-Income Workers In Illinois: An Analysis And Lessons For Other States, Philip C. Aka, Chidera V. Oku, Murna Habila

Akron Law Review

This Article makes suggestions for promoting retirement security among low-income workers in Illinois with pointed lessons for workers in other U.S. states. Adapting a framework from a previous study by the principal author, the Article portrays retirement preparedness for low-income workers in Illinois as a function of changes in Social Security, employer-sponsored pensions, and personal assets—the famed “three-legged stool” of retirement income—synchronized with reduction of disparities between socioeconomic groups in education, healthcare, and housing. Many studies on retirement security focus excessively on the national level sometimes at the expense of the subnational phenomena that complicate retirement security ...

Change Is Constant In Estate Planning: Reflections Of An Actec Law Journal Editor, Bridget J. Crawford

Pace Law Faculty Publications

Change is the only constant in the life of a trusts and estates professional. The law changes; the needs of clients change; the methods for achieving certain results change; technology and modes of communication change. So, too, it can be said that change is the only constant running through more than forty years of our organization's flagship publication.

Discretionary Trusts: An Update, Richard C. Ausness

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In the past, settlors tended to limit a trustee’s discretion by setting forth a specific formula for the distribution of trust assets. Nowadays, however, settlors often prefer to vest more discretion in their trustees. This is partly due to the fact that beneficiaries tend to live longer and, therefore, trusts inevitably last longer, thereby requiring trustees to respond to changing conditions. In addition, settlors often believe that vesting increased discretion on the part of trustees will discourage beneficiaries from bringing expensive and disruptive challenges to their decisions.

Nevertheless, the trend toward increased discretion is not without its problems. First ...

The Prince Estate: How Intestacy Works, How It Could Work, And How It Fails As An Estate Plan, Dennis M. Patrick, Beth T. Morrison

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Federal Law Of Property: The Case Of Inheritance Disclaimers And Tenancy By The Entireties, David Gray Carlson

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Income Tax Concerns With Purpose Trusts, Thomas E. Simmons

Thomas E. Simmons

No abstract provided.

United States V. Osage Wind, Llc, Summer Carmack

Public Land and Resources Law Review

The Osage Nation, as owner of the beneficial interest in its mineral estate, issues federally-approved leases to persons and entities who wish to conduct mineral development on its lands. After an energy-development company, Osage Wind, leased privately-owned surface lands within Tribal reservation boundaries and began to excavate minerals for purposes of constructing a wind farm, the United States brought suit on the Tribe’s behalf. In the ensuing litigation, the Osage Nation insisted that Osage Wind should have obtained a mineral lease from the Tribe before beginning its work. In its decision, the Tenth Circuit applied one of the Indian ...

Maximizing Ponzi Loss Deductions For Estate And Income Tax Purposes: Are Taxpayers Better Off Dead?, Valrie Chambers, Brian Elzweig

William & Mary Business Law Review

There is a long history of cases interpreting whether a theft loss deduction for securities fraud is allowable for personal income taxes. The cases require that for a theft loss to be actionable as such, it would have to meet the requirements of the common law definition of theft in the U.S. state in which it occurred. This generally requires direct privity between the person claiming the loss and the person who committed the theft. Because most securities transactions are brokered, the direct privity is lost and a theft loss deduction is denied in favor a capital loss. Recently ...

Introducing Virtual Representation, Thomas E. Simmons

Thomas E. Simmons

Letter To Orrin G. Hatch And Ron Wyden On Donor-Advised Funds, Ray D. Madoff, Roger Colinvaux

Law School Publications

Letter to Orrin G. Hatch, chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Finance and Ron Wyden, the ranking member of that committee. This letter was a response to a September 6 letter from the representatives of charitable foundations, which in turn responded to a July 17 letter from Madoff and Colinvaux. The subject of the letter is a set of proposed changes, proposed by Madoff and Colinvaux, to the tax code related to donor-advised funds.

Raising The Dead: An Examination Of In Re Kingsbury And Maine's Law Regarding Intestate Succession And Posthumous Paternity Testing, Dylan R. Boyd

Maine Law Review

In 2001, Ben Erskine, a man who claimed to be the son of renowned guru Paramahansa Yogananda, planned to ask a Los Angeles judge to order that the guru's body be exhumed for DNA testing to determine Erskine's paternity. Erskine's allegations threatened both Yogananda's reputation and the fortune of his estate, which belonged to his organization the Self Realization Fellowship. In 2002, seven years after the allegations arose, conclusive tests comparing Erskine's DNA and that of Yogananda's surviving male relatives in India resolved the controversy and vindicated the guru, thus putting to rest the ...