JANUARY 29, 2001 VOLUME 8, NUMBER 31 Under English practice before the sixteenth century there were no standardized requirements for making a valid will. Disposition of a decedent’s property was determined by each court under local rules and customs, and the actual division was therefore unpredictable. Henry VIII approved Parliament’s “Statute of Wills” in 1540,…
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JANUARY 22, 2001 VOLUME 8, NUMBER 30 Virginia Detlefs, 81, was living in her own home in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, when she first met Mark Olsen. In September, 1996, Mr. Olsen contacted Ms. Detlefs and offered to evaluate her home to see if it needed any repairs. With the help of his live-in girlfriend Jennifer…
JANUARY 15, 2001 VOLUME 8, NUMBER 29 Massachusetts resident Thomas Rogers, Sr., was a successful businessman and retired director of a local bank. When his first wife died after a forty-year marriage and four children, he met and married Thelma W. Wigglesworth. The second Mrs. Rogers was 66 and Mr. Rogers was 74 when they…
JANUARY 8, 2001 VOLUME 8, NUMBER 28 Norma Steinback was interested in purchasing long term care insurance for her husband Jack. When she saw a solicitation from Bankers Life and Casualty Company she returned the postcard indicating an interest. Shortly thereafter Bankers Life agent James Van Noten visited the Steinbacks at their Montana home. During…
JANUARY 1, 2001 VOLUME 8, NUMBER 27 In June of 2000 the U.S. Supreme Court decided the case of Troxel v. Granville, concerning the rights of grandparents to secure court-ordered visitation with their grandchildren. In the wake of that case many observers predicted that no such right could survive. Arizona’s Court of Appeals last week…
DECEMBER 25, 2000 VOLUME 8, NUMBER 26 Indiana resident Petricia Day seemed to be caught in a bureaucratic Catch-22. She needed help paying for her medical treatment. Her problem: Indiana’s interpretation of federal Medicaid rules prevented her from getting the treatment because it might be successful. Medicaid is a federal program partially paid for and…
DECEMBER 18, 2000 VOLUME 8, NUMBER 25 Frail, demented nursing home patients can eventually lose the ability to take food and fluids by mouth. When that process begins to occur tube feedings may be started. Doctors and family members may believe that such feedings prolong life and improve the ability to fight bedsores and disease.…
DECEMBER 11, 2000 VOLUME 8, NUMBER 24 “Estate planning” means more than just preparing and signing a will. The families of Donald and Mary Perkins learned that even when a will is in place, there still may be problems. Mr. and Mrs. Perkins had both been married before. Each of them had three children from…
DECEMBER 4, 2000 VOLUME 8, NUMBER 23 Frank Magrini died in 1965, and his estate was subjected to the probate process in his home state of Washington. The probate took almost ten years to complete, but everything passed to his wife before it was closed in 1974. Nearly a quarter century later three people claimed…
NOVEMBER 27, 2000 VOLUME 8, NUMBER 22 Dora Steinberg was 76 years old when her husband died. She decided that she should put her children’s names on her account. Right after her husband’s death in 1983 she opened a stock brokerage account with Dean Witter Reynolds with about $120,000. The account was titled in three…