Texas, like many other states, prohibits a killer from receiving life insurance proceeds or inheriting from an estate. Such prohibitions are commonly referenced as either a "slayer statute" or a "slayer rule." The public policy is obviously that a killer should not financially benefit from a death he or she willfully causes. Given the sizes of many estates and life insurance policies, such scenarios are unfortunately not uncommon. Certainly, investigators and prosecutor will look to whether insurance or estate proceeds might have provided motive for a particular murder. There have even been some notorious cases of people taking out life insurance policies on acquaintances and then killing them for profit.
Read MoreIn Mayfield v. Peek, the El Paso Court of Appeals considered a standing issue. Standing may sound like a dry issue, particularly to non-lawyers. But is a crucial issue to my practice of litigating Texas estate and trust beneficiary disputes. If a court rules that a party does not have standing, it will typically not even reach the merits of the underlying issue. In layman's terms, the courthouse doors are closed. Mayfield involved two siblings fighting over an inheritance from their parents. The parents had set up a family revocable trust their children and several other relatives. The trust was funded by several pieces of real property and other assets. The trust became irrevocable upon the death of the first parent.
Read MoreIn Texas Capital Bank v. Asche, the Dallas Court of Appeals affirmed the probate court's judgment that a series of estate planning documents should be set aside. The judgment was based on jury findings that the testator lacked sufficient mental capacity to execute the documents. This was not the classic case of challenged will executed in the days or weeks before death. In this case, the challenge was to a series of wills, codicils, and trust documents executed over a period of about 13 years. This was not an easy task for the contestants, given the long time period and number of documents executed. The challenge was largely based on the testimony of a forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Lisa Clayton. She opined that a stroke the testator suffered in 1997 rendered him without testamentary capacity until he died in 2011.
Read MoreMany will contests involve a challenge to the validity of a will, such as claims it did not meet formality requirements or that the testator lacked capacity or was subjected to undue influence. However, sometimes the primary dispute is how to interpret one or more provisions of a will. I find this to be most often the case when the will is not prepared by an experienced estate planing lawyer. Unfortunately, homemade wills often contain confusing, unclear, or outright contradictory provisions. Or a testator may have an excellent will drafted by a lawyer, only to make a homemade codicil that offers more confusion than clarity. The procedure for having a court determine meaning of a legal document, such as a will, is through a declaratory judgment action.
Read MoreA fairly common scenario in estate litigation involves a claim from a widow to a share of an estate. Often there is a claim of a common law marriage. Texas recognizes common law marriage under some circumstances. Once established, a common law marriage is effectively the same as a formal marriage. Even a formal marriage can be challenged, under limited circumstances.
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