Category Archives: Trusts & Estates
Aug 8, 2014 Phyllis C. TaiteTrusts & Estates
Robert H. Sitkoff,
Trusts and Estates: Implementing Freedom of Disposition, 58
St. Louis U.L.J. 643 (forthcoming, 2014), available at
SSRN.
Professor Robert Sitkoff’s article, Trusts and Estates: Implementing Freedom of Disposition, provides practical information and addresses major themes for professors teaching trusts and estates including intestacy, wills, trusts and planning for incapacity. It is a wonderful primer for professors and students new to the area of estates and trusts. For the more seasoned professors, Professor Sitkoff provides policy questions that will certainly provide an opportunity for healthy debates amongst the students. There are only a handful of articles that explicitly address trusts and estates pedagogy; this article does not simply summarize the curriculum, but rather it encourages law faculty to think in a big picture way about the overarching issues. As such, it is an important contribution to the scholarly literature.
Professor Sitkoff suggests that the subject be viewed through the lens of “freedom of disposition,” in contrast to the more traditional approach that usually proceeds according to methods of succession (probate succession by will and intestacy, and non-probate succession by inter vivos trust, pay-on-death contract, and other such will substitutes). While recognizing there are limitations on the freedom of disposition, he convincingly argues that law and policy start with this premise and that our analysis of them should also start that way. The priority, in a property transfer transaction, is placed on the intent of the transferor over the putative rights of the recipient of the property, whether the property passes via intestacy, will, trust, or nonprobate transfer. Continue reading "Teaching Trusts and Estates"
Jul 8, 2014 Kent D. SchenkelTrusts & Estates
Early in the introduction to his arresting new book on wealth distribution, the French economist Thomas Piketty asserts that “the distribution of wealth is too important an issue to be left to economists, sociologists, historians, and philosophers.” (P. 2.) “Everyone,” he writes, should be interested. It seems to me that, on the issue of wealth distribution, trusts and estates scholars should be at or near the front of the queue. In any event, that is my excuse for choosing a book on economics as a JOTWELL selection for trusts and estates.
In the short time the English translation of Capital in the Twenty-First Century has been available (March, 2014), Piketty has achieved near rock-star status. The hard-copy version of the book, which runs 577 pages excluding the footnotes, is sold out on Amazon as I write this. It has been reviewed by all the major newspapers, discussed in all the business and academic journals, and debated across the blogs, and its themes have been batted around by commentators of all stripes. The New York Times, not content to restrict discussion of the splash the book is making to its opinion pages, recently featured Piketty in its Sunday Styles section. Reviews, references, debates and interviews continue. All of which seems to indicate that at least the chattering and scribbling classes, if not the public at large, are rather intrigued by the themes offered by the book. Continue reading "Trusts and Estates Law and the Question of Wealth Distribution"
Jun 13, 2014 Paula MonopoliTrusts & Estates
Kristine S. Knaplund,
Assisted Reproductive Technology: The Legal Issues,
Prob. & Prop. Mag., Mar./Apr. 2014, at 48.
Kris Knaplund is one of the leading American scholars in the area of postmortem conception and its theoretical and doctrinal implications for the field of inheritance law. In her article, Assisted Reproductive Technology: The Legal Issues, Knaplund lays out the complex planning issues that arise in a variety of scenarios involving Alternative or Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART). This clear and succinct article is a must read for professors, practitioners and students alike. Knaplund educates readers about the increasing number of situations and clients that involve ART, ranging from a trust beneficiary who is planning to use a gestational surrogate to a hospital faced with the widow of a recently deceased man who wants to harvest his sperm to have future children.
Knaplund begins by defining assisted reproductive technology as “the handling of gametes (sperm or ova) outside the human body in order to achieve a pregnancy.” She notes that the three most common forms of ART are assisted insemination, in vitro fertilization, and gestational carriers. She then proceeds to illustrate the kind of legal issues that attach to each of the three forms. For example, in assisted insemination (more commonly known as artificial insemination) the sperm donor is typically not the legal father if the sperm has been given to a licensed physician. But if a donor dispenses with the physician and donates directly to the intended mother, the statutory safe harbor no longer applies. Knaplund outlines several state cases including Jhordan C. v. Mary K., 224 Cal. Rptr. 530 (Ct. App. 1986) where that scenario results in the sperm donor being declared the resulting child’s legal father. Continue reading "Navigating the Complexities of Assisted Reproductive Technology"
May 12, 2014 Gerry W. BeyerTrusts & Estates
Professor Daniel B. Kelly’s well-researched and carefully reasoned article discusses the traditional justifications for restricting testamentary freedom, not only from a legal perspective, but also an economic or functional one. The article first discusses the structure and goal of American succession law and the relevance of distinguishing between the ex ante perspective versus the ex post perspective. Next, the article explains the economic justifications for restricting testamentary freedom. Finally, the article critically analyzes the legal limitations on testamentary freedom.
Professor Kelly begins by noting the fundamental principle of American succession law—testamentary freedom. One justification for the law generally deferring to owners of property in deciding how to utilize or transfer their property is that it promotes social welfare. An advantage of testamentary freedom is that it aligns an individual’s “incentive to work, save, and invest with what is socially optimal,” which would facilitate long-term capital accumulation and productivity. Another advantage of testamentary freedom is that, in many situations, the testator is likely to be better informed than legislators or judges on how best to distribute the testator’s property. Finally, Professor Kelly notes that testamentary freedom may benefit familial relationships. However, even with all these advantages, a system based on testamentary freedom does not always coincide with the overall goal of advancing social welfare, at least in part because the law sometimes fails to incorporate the ex ante perspective. Consequently, the issue arises of when should the courts facilitate testamentary freedom, even though doing so permits a testator to assert “dead hand” control, and when should the courts restrict testamentary freedom, even though doing so means intervening in the testator’s disposition of property. Continue reading "“Take your stinking paws off [my property], you damned dirty [judges and legislators]!”*"
Apr 14, 2014 Thomas GallanisTrusts & Estates
John H. Langbein, Destructive Federal Preemption of State Wealth Transfer Law in Beneficiary Designation Cases: Hillman Doubles Down on Egelhoff, Vand. L. Rev. (forthcoming, 2014), available at SSRN.
Nearly twenty-five years ago, Professor John Langbein published an article with the arresting title The Supreme Court Flunks Trusts. The article critiqued the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. v. Bruch, 489 U.S. 101 (1989), a decision which, as Professor Langbein explained, “rest[ed] on an elementary error in trust law” (P. 208) producing “a nonsense reading of ERISA” (P. 209). The article’s reasoning was compelling, and particularly devastating was the article’s conclusion (PP. 228-9):
. . .Bruch is such a crude piece of work that one may well question whether it had the full attention of the Court. I do not believe that [the justices] would have uttered such doctrinal hash if they had been seriously engaged in the enterprise. . .
I understand why a Court wrestling with the grandest issues of public law may feel that its mission is distant from ERISA. The Court may increasingly view itself as having become a supreme constitutional court, resembling the specialized constitutional courts on the Continent. If so, the time may have come to recognize a corollary. If the Court is bored with the detail of supervising complex bodies of statutory law, thought should be given to having that job done by a court that would take it seriously. . .
In 2013, the Supreme Court flunked again, this time with the laws of succession and restitution. The case was Hillman v. Maretta, 133 S.Ct. 1943 (2013). Professor Langbein has again penned a valuable and withering critique. It is a must-read. Continue reading "The Supreme Court Flunks Again"
Mar 12, 2014 Solangel MaldonadoTrusts & Estates
There are certain decisions that most individuals would agree are deeply personal and should be made by the individual, not the state, or a third party. The decision to marry, divorce, relocate, execute a will, or donate one’s organs are among those decisions. But what if an individual has lost the cognitive capacity, due to accident or illness, to make these decisions? In the health care context, individuals increasingly delegate decisions about medical treatment to a representative. States encourage individuals to delegate these decisions by making durable power of attorney for health care forms readily available on their websites. When individuals fail to plan for loss of decisional capacity, states often rely on a statutory list of potential surrogates (such as a spouse, an adult child, a parent, etc.) or court-appointed guardians to make health care decisions on their behalf.
Health care decisions are as personal as any decision can be. Yet, while delegation is increasingly accepted in the health care context, the law generally does not allow individuals to delegate other personal decisions such as the decision to marry, divorce, or execute a will. Why not? What are the harms, if any, of not allowing delegation of personal decisions? Should a person who lacks decisional capacity be doomed to remain in an unhealthy marriage? Should he be bound by his state’s intestate succession scheme even if it is contrary to his values and preferences? These are the questions that Alexander A. Boni-Saenz tackles in Personal Delegations. Continue reading "Expanding Surrogate Decisionmaking"
Feb 7, 2014 Kerry RyanTrusts & Estates
Luc Arrondel & André Masson, Taxing more (large) family bequests: why, when, where?, (2013), available at HAL-SHS.
As I write this review, I am blatantly aware of the maxim “we like what we know.” I like Luc Arrondel and André Masson’s (A&M) working paper (lots) because it touches on themes I have previously written about (the clash between family autonomy and equality of opportunity as the central normative tension underlying the federal wealth transfer taxes) or enjoyed in other legal scholars’ work (the failure of economic models to account for “life in all of its fullness”). The contribution to these subjects made by A&M is interesting for two reasons: 1) they are economists by trade and 2) they offer a distinctly interdisciplinary analysis of the conundrum of wealth transfer taxation.
A&M first identify (and empirically document) a tax “puzzle:” revenues from wealth transfer taxation are very low and have fallen as a percentage of GDP in most developed countries over the past 50 years; whereas, revenues from lifetime capital taxation (including taxes on property/wealth and taxes on annual capital income flows) are generally higher and show no decreasing trend. The article discards several proffered explanations for this phenomenon (increased lobbying by the rich, growing international tax competition, and the relatively recent anti-government/tax movement) because these factors, intended to account for the growing unpopularity of inheritance taxation, would also imply—wrongly—a sharp decline in lifetime capital taxation. Continue reading "Are Inheritance Taxes Special?"
Jan 13, 2014 Browne LewisTrusts & Estates
Testamentary freedom gives a person the right to control the distribution of his or her property upon death. The main way for a person to exercise that right is to execute a Will. In the event a person dies without a Will, his or her estate is distributed based upon the scheme set forth in the applicable intestacy statute. Even though most Americans die without executing Wills, Professor Weisbord is convinced that the decision not to execute a Will is not an indication that a person wants his or her property to be distributed under the intestacy system. Professor Weisbord opines that most people do not understand the consequences of dying intestate.
Professor Weisbord seeks to articulate a reason for the high rate of intestacy. He rejects the argument that people fail to execute Wills because they are afraid to think about their own mortality. To justify his rejection of that argument, Professor Weisbord asserts that people confront and plan for death by using non-testamentary transfer devices like life insurance and retirement plans with death benefit provisions. Professor Weisbord concludes that procrastination is the most plausible explanation for the high rate of intestacy. He maintains that most people procrastinate when it comes to making a Will because the process is complex and intimidating. According to Professor Weisbord, the Will-making process is complicated because the Will has to be attested to by witnesses and drafted using complex legal language. Professor Weisbord states, “In short, simplifying the will-making process would likely reduce testamentary procrastination.” Continue reading "Linking the Certainty of Death and Taxes"
Nov 27, 2013 Lynda Wray BlackTrusts & Estates
Jamie Patrick Hopkins, Afterlife in the Cloud: Managing a Digital Estate, 5 Hastings Sci. & Tech. L.J. 210 (2013), available at SSRN.
A decedent might have gone to join his digital property in the clouds, but for the estate lawyer here on earth, these digital assets may require more novel and not (as of yet) widely embraced estate planning techniques.
In his recent article, Professor Jamie P. Hopkins identifies the digital assets that increasingly are property interests of a decedent’s estate. The mechanics for establishing joint ownership of digital assets is less than clear; the importance of including digital assets in the estate plan for their post-death transfer is highlighted. Continue reading "A Decedent’s Digital After-Life"
Nov 27, 2013 Camille DavidsonTrusts & Estates
Jamie Patrick Hopkins, Afterlife in the Cloud: Managing a Digital Estate, 5 Hastings Sci. & Tech. L.J. 210 (2013), available at SSRN.
In the article, Afterlife in the Cloud: Managing a Digital Estate, Professor Jamie Hopkins steps into the tangled web of estate planning for digital assets. Professor Hopkins’s article is timely and allows us to begin a much needed discussion about a new and important area of estate planning. He begins to answer the question of what happens to digital assets when an individual dies. Can an individual dispose of his or her digital assets in a will or trust? How should issues of security and privacy be addressed? Hopkins reminds us that digital assets are vast and complex and traditional estate planning tools do not adequately address the issues that are involved with transferring such assets at an individual’s death. He suggests a combination of federal legislation and better service agreements between service providers and users as a solution to the digital dilemma.
Although, I am not convinced that federal legislation is the appropriate mechanism, I agree that uniformity is in order. Since only a handful of states have addressed the issue, many individuals are not aware of whether they may transfer certain assets when they die. For example, in my will, I devise my real and personal property to my designated beneficiaries. When I executed my will several years ago, I used a 35mm camera to take pictures. I used a day planner to keep my schedule, I kept paper copies of bank statements and other financial documents, and I used a Rolodex to store information from professional contacts. Today, my digital photographs are stored on a hard drive or in a cloud. I use an online scheduler to keep my appointments, I use online banking for most of my investments, I share photographs and videos via Facebook, I download my music and books from ITunes, and I use Twitter for professional connections. I have numerous passwords to these accounts, and I have checked “I agree” to several online service agreements. Will my beneficiaries have access to my digital assets? Professor Hopkins’s article is a wake-up call for people like me. Continue reading "Does My Digital Estate Belong to Me? Estate Planning for Digital Assets"
