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Articles 1 - 8 of 8
Full-Text Articles in Law
American Probate: Protecting The Public, Improving The Process, Paula Monopoli
American Probate: Protecting The Public, Improving The Process, Paula Monopoli
Paula A Monopoli
New Hampshire judge and probate attorney John Fairbanks, a court-appointed executor and trustee, stole thousands of dollars from the estates of his trusting elderly clients. Successful Virginia lawyer David Murray misappropriated nearly four million dollars from estates entrusted to him in one of the largest financial swindles by a lawyer in U.S. history. Enterprising attorney James Gunderson drafted wills and living trusts for many residents of Leisure World in Orange County, California, who named him the sole trustee and major beneficiary. These are just some of the cases examined by Paula A. Monopoli to illustrate the unsettling prevalence of fraud …
Testamentary Substitutes: Retained Interests, Custodial Accounts And Contractual Transactions—A New Approach, Sidney Kwestel, Rena C. Seplowitz
Testamentary Substitutes: Retained Interests, Custodial Accounts And Contractual Transactions—A New Approach, Sidney Kwestel, Rena C. Seplowitz
Rena C. Seplowitz
No abstract provided.
Of Charities And Clawbacks: The European Union Proposal On Successions And Wills As A Threat To Charitable Giving, Aaron Schwabach
Of Charities And Clawbacks: The European Union Proposal On Successions And Wills As A Threat To Charitable Giving, Aaron Schwabach
Faculty Scholarship
In the United Kingdom, and to a lesser extent the United States, an inter vivos gift, once given, cannot be reclaimed by the giver's heirs. In civil law countries the situation is quite different: Not only spouses, but issue and in some cases even ascendants, are entitled to a forced share of a decedent's estate--and these forced shares are assessed against a notional “estate” that includes the testator's inter vivos gifts. If the total of these forced shares exceeds the amount actually available in the decedent's estate at death, the recipients of the gifts, or their successors, may be forced …
Testamentary Substitutes: Retained Interests, Custodial Accounts And Contractual Transactions—A New Approach, Sidney Kwestel, Rena C. Seplowitz
Testamentary Substitutes: Retained Interests, Custodial Accounts And Contractual Transactions—A New Approach, Sidney Kwestel, Rena C. Seplowitz
Sidney Kwestel
No abstract provided.
Employee Pension Rights And The False Promise Of Trust Law, Elizabeth Shilton
Employee Pension Rights And The False Promise Of Trust Law, Elizabeth Shilton
Dalhousie Law Journal
This article explores the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court of Canada on employment pension trusts. I argue that the Court's 1994 decision in Schmidt v. Air Products, which embraced trust law as a tool for resolving pension surplus ownership disputes, held out the promise that courts would use fiduciary principles to shape pension rights for employees and protect those rights against employer self-interest. That promise has failed to bear much fruit. Since Schmidt, the Court has moved away from a conception of trust law as a fetter on employer power towards a flexible conception in which employer trust obligations are …
The Game Is Afoot!: The Significance Of Donative Transfers In The Sherlock Holmes Canon, Stephen R. Alton
The Game Is Afoot!: The Significance Of Donative Transfers In The Sherlock Holmes Canon, Stephen R. Alton
Faculty Scholarship
This article presents a recently discovered and previously unpublished manuscript written by John H. Watson, M.D., and annotated by Professor Stephen Alton. Dr. Watson’s manuscript records an extended conversation that took place between the good doctor and his great friend, the renowned consulting detective Mr. Sherlock Holmes, regarding issues of gratuitous transfers of property – issues involving inheritances, wills, and trusts – that have arisen in some of the great cases solved by Mr. Holmes. This felicitous discovery confirms something that Professor Alton has long known: these gratuitous transfer issues permeate many of these adventures. Often, the action in the …
Trusts & Estates (Annual Survey Of Michigan Law, June 1, 2011 - May 31, 2012), Susan E. Cancelosi
Trusts & Estates (Annual Survey Of Michigan Law, June 1, 2011 - May 31, 2012), Susan E. Cancelosi
Law Faculty Research Publications
The Survey period began only two months after the Michigan Trust Code took effect. Thus, attorneys handling matters subject to the new trust law were only beginning to delve into how their practices will change. At the same time, estate planners who handle larger estates spent the first part of the Survey period on edge about federal estate tax uncertainty. Although Congress in mid-December 2010 did act to extend the estate tax relief of the past decade, it did so only temporarily, leaving many questions for future planning. With the new Michigan Trust Code and the federal estate tax changes, …
Us Perpetual Trusts, Lawrence W. Waggoner
Us Perpetual Trusts, Lawrence W. Waggoner
Articles
In 2009, the UK reconfirmed tis long-standing public policy against perpetual trusts. America has been moving in the opposite direction. Recent years have seen a movement in the states to pass legislation allowing settlors to create family trusts that can last forever or for several centuries. Sadly, and embarrassingly, the American perpetual-trust movement has not been based on the merits of removing the traditional curb on excessive dead-hand control. The policy issues associated with allowing perpetual trusts have not been seriously discussed in the state legislatures. The driving force has been interstate competition for trust business.