February 2015 Case out of Tennessee Shows Who Dies First Matters, Husband’s Estate Gets Everything, Wife’s Estate Sues to no Avail!

If you ever read your will (and I hope you have) you may have noticed a clause  that says if someone dies within a certain amount of time (usually 90 days) then that person does not count as pre-deceasing you. This effects their rights of inheritance. When you read that section you were probably thinking to yourself, “seriously what are the odds?” A tragic case out of the Court of Appeals of Tennessee decided on February 19, 2015 shows that it may be more common that you realize and it can change how your assets are distributed.

• In the case of Estate of Marcia Hull v. Estate of George A. Culver the two estates were that of a married couple who were severely injured in a fire at their home.
• Both of the spouses were extremely injured and on life support and the wife was let die first when the husband showed some signs of recovery only to eventually pass away a little bit after.
• Now when you die intestate (without a will) everything will pass to your wife (if you have no kids from other spouses). 
• So everything here pretty much ended up in the estate of the husband.
• Now the wife’s family has sued in the Chancery Court of Tennessee (a court of equity) asking that those assets not be considered part of the husbands estate, part of their argument was that the husband may have only been prolonged in life so that the assets would transfer.
• Ultimately the judge did not agree and said that the estates were proper as they stood, especially because there was evidence that the husband had shown signs of improvement.

Who would have guessed that two people could die so close together? Well unfortunately in any tragedy like a fire this is extremely possible.

What to take away?

1. Have an estate plan. Dying intestate really changed everything around here and a good estate plan could have avoided these family feuds.
2. Probate battles can happen between anyone, who would have guessed that this fight would have broken down to the extended family members of both parties? In other words you cannot just assume everyone will  be civil when you die, that may not be the case.

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Want to read the entire case, click here.