Estates and Trusts Commons^™

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 ...

Non-Charitable Purpose Trusts: Past, Present, And Future, Richard C. Ausness

Richard C. Ausness

This Article focuses on non-charitable purpose trusts and how they enable estate planners to better carry out their clients’ objectives.

Please Don’T Make Me Pay Taxes: How New Irs Law Helps Art Collectors Avoid Hefty Taxes, Stephanie Dunn

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.

The Potential Impact Of Heir Property On Timber Management In The Southeastern United States, Becky Barlow, Conner Bailey

Professional Agricultural Workers Journal

Abstract

Active timberland management maintains forest health and productivity, which in turn contributes to the sustainability of the resource and wealth of the landowner. However, when land is held as heir property, options for timberland management are often limited. Heir property is owned as an undivided interest among many heirs of an original owner, or multiple generations of owners, who died intestate. This is common among African American landowners in the South. As a result the title is considered “clouded,” limiting access to capital and resources that are beneficial to timberland management. In this paper, the authors hope to improve ...

Fiduciary Governance, Paul B. Miller, Andrew S. Gold

Paul Miller

The fiduciary relationship is one of the most fundamental legal relationships, and its importance for both public and private law is increasingly recognized. Fiduciary mandates typically involve one person—the fiduciary—administering the affairs or property of other persons—an individual beneficiary or group of beneficiaries. Yet, as we will demonstrate, this is not the only way fiduciary relationships are structured. Most accounts of fiduciary law oversimplify the law because they exclude a categorically different form of fiduciary relationship. A significant set of fiduciary relationships feature governance mandates in which the fiduciary is charged with pursuing abstract purposes rather than ...

No Child Left Behind: Extending Ohio's Pretermitted Heir Statute To Revocable Trusts, Danielle J. Halachoff

Akron Law Review

Generally, pretermitted heir statutes protect a child, and under some statutes a more remote descendant of the testator from unintentional disinheritance. Their purpose is to carry out the presumed intent of the decedent to provide for a child inadvertently omitted from the will. Because revocable trusts are regularly used as substitutes for wills, primarily to avoid probate administration, presumptions regarding the intent of a decedent that are applicable to wills should also be applicable to revocable trusts. Additionally, many other problems that arise when disposing of a testator’s property at death may also arise with a settlor’s use ...

Arbitration In Wills And Trusts: From George Washington To An Uncertain Present, Edward F. Sherman

Arbitration Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Novel Tool For Teaching Property: Starting With The Questions, Tim Iglesias

Tim Iglesias

Fiduciary Obligations And Aboriginal Peoples, Kent Mcneil

Kent McNeil

No abstract provided.

Non-Charitable Purpose Trusts: Past, Present, And Future, Richard C. Ausness

Law Faculty Popular Media

This Article focuses on non-charitable purpose trusts and how they enable estate planners to better carry out their clients’ objectives.

In Re Davis Family Heritage Trust, 133 Nev. Adv. Op. 26 (May 25, 2017)., Ping Chang

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

No abstract provided.

Klabacka V. Nelson, 133 Nev. Adv. Op. 24 (May 25, 2017), Christopher Kelly

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court determined that (1) family courts have subject matter jurisdiction in divorce proceedings that involve issues otherwise outside the scope of family courts, (2) parol evidence may not be considered to determine party intent to form separate property agreements and self-settled spendthrift trusts where the written agreements are valid and unambiguous, (3) a court order equalizing assets between different spendthrift trusts is improper because the NRS protects against court orders that move assets from trusts and against moves that do not benefit trust beneficiaries, (4) spendthrift trusts may not be reached for payment of personal obligations not known at ...

In Re Connell Living Trust, 133 Nev. Adv. Op. 19 (May. 04, 2017), Marco Luna

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the district court that found Appellant had breached her fiduciary duty when she withheld assets from entering a trust created for her children, the Respondents. The Court found that the mother had insufficient evidence to raise a genuine issue of material fact that she owned 100% of a trust created by her parents when her children were slated to receive 65% of said trust from their grandparents. The Court affirmed the lower court, ordered the assets be moved to the children's trust, and awarded them attorney's fees.

Asymmetries In The Generation And Transmission Of Wealth, Felix B. Chang

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

This Article assigns a redistributive role to the legal rules of trusts and estates. Unlike business law, trusts and estates has lagged in articulating a comprehensive theory on inequality. Consequently, income inequality is compounded intergenerationally as wealth inequality, with dire consequences for economic productivity and social stability. To move the discourse on wealth inequality, this Article explores the divergent approaches toward inequality in business law and trusts and estates.

Additionally, this Article recasts trusts and estates’ legal rules as wealth transfer mechanisms. Four categories of rules are implicated: (1) rules that interact with the tax system, (2) rules that govern ...

Expanding The Slayer Rule In Florida: Why Elder Abuse Should Trigger Disinheritance, Natasa Glisic

Barry Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Method In Fiduciary Law's Mixed Messages, Evan J. Criddle

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Tomorrow's Inheritance: The Frontiers Of Estate Planning Formalism, David Horton

Boston College Law Review

The rules that govern the creation of an estate plan are in flux. Courts once demanded strict adherence to the Wills Act. Yet, this legacy of hyper-vigilance is waning, as the Uniform Probate Code, the Restatement (Third) of Property, and ten states have adopted the harmless error rule. Meanwhile, trusts, which need not comply with the Wills Act, have eclipsed wills as the dominant method of posthumous wealth transmission. This Article explores three budding topics that threaten to further complicate this area. First, there are anecdotal accounts of decedents trying to make electronic wills. In both strict compliance and harmless ...

Liberty In Loyalty: A Republican Theory Of Fiduciary Law, Evan J. Criddle

Faculty Publications

Conventional wisdom holds that the fiduciary duty of loyalty is a prophylactic rule that serves to deter and redress harmful opportunism. This idea can be traced back to the dawn of modern fiduciary law in England and the United States, and it has inspired generations of legal scholars to attempt to explain and justify the duty of loyalty from an economic perspective. Nonetheless, this Article argues that the conventional account of fiduciary loyalty should be abandoned because it does not adequately explain or justify fiduciary law’s core features.

The normative foundations of fiduciary loyalty come into sharper focus when ...

Freedom Of Inheritance, Mark Glover

Utah Law Review

The law grants individuals the broad freedom of disposition to decide how their property should be distributed upon death. The rationale underlying freedom of disposition is that the choices of individual donors produce results that maximize social welfare. Policymakers are rightfully skeptical that they can craft a mandatory estate plan that fits all situations or that probate courts can consistently and accurately assess the merits of particular dispositions of property. By contrast, the donor is in the best position to evaluate her own specific circumstances and to place property in the hands of the donees who will benefit the most ...

How Many #Followers Do You Have?: Evaluating The Rise Of Social Media And Issues Concerning In Re Ctli’S Determination That Social Media Accounts Are Property Of The Estate, Patricia A. Leeson

Catholic University Law Review

With the rise of social media use, legal disputes have surfaced with litigants looking to the courts to determine issues of ownership and legal authority. As a matter of first impression, a U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Texas held that a Twitter and Facebook social media account were to be regarded as property of the estate pursuant to Section 541 of the Bankruptcy Code. The court analogized the social media accounts to subscriber lists because they provide valuable access to customers. Although the court addressed the question of whether social media applications are to be regarded as property in bankruptcy ...