California's End of Life Act

            When Governor Brown signed the California End of Life Act in early October 2015, he said, “I don’t know what I would do if I were dying and in prolonged and excruciating pain. I am certain, however, that it would be a comfort to consider the options afforded by this bill and I wouldn’t deny that right to others.”  It is quite a statement considering the Governor’s Jesuit background, but a sentiment shared by many. 

            The new law goes into effect on June 9, 2016. Here are some facts with regard to it: 

·         The patient must be a resident of California;

·         The patient must be an adult;

·         The patient must be terminally ill and given a prognosis of six months or less to live;

·         The patient must be mentally competent of making their own healthcare decisions, but external factors, such as depression are not factors;

·         The patient must be acting voluntarily, and must make an informed decision which includes being given information about all other end-of-life options, and must be informed that he or she may be given the aid-in-dying drug, but need not take it.

·         Mechanically, the patient must make two verbal requests to his/her physician 15 days apart, followed by a written request witnessed by two people one of which cannot be a relative;

·         Then, 48 hours prior to the administration of the aid-in-dying drug, the patient must sign a form confirming that the choice to die was made of his or her own free will; and

·         Finally, the patient must self-administer the drug.  No one else can administer the drug. 

In addition to the requirements above, steps must be followed in order for a person to qualify for the aid-in-dying medication.  It is estimated that the average length in time between requesting and receiving the medication will be between 15 days and three months and will require the patient to see two doctors who must conclude that the patient has less than six months to live.  In seeing the doctors, at least one visit must be private, with only the patient and the doctor present with the goal being to ensure that the patient is acting of his or her own accord. Thus it would seem that a qualified patient who has reached the decision to transition should act  as soon as that decision is a sure one, before the patient becomes incompetent to carry out the dictates of the Act. 

In enacting the law, California becomes only the fifth state in the United States to have such a law, but with the population in California being what it is, the result will be that one in ten people in the United States will now have the legislative right to die. 

California’s law will expire in ten years subject to extension by the Legislature.

 

For more information and continued updates regarding the End of Life Option Act, go to www.endoflifeoption.org .

While we are urged by Dylan Thomas to “not go gentle into that good night”, for some the ability to go peacefully is an answer to their agonized dreams.

Bowie & Scalia: What Could They Possibly Have In Common?

     2016 has already brought the loss of two giants in their fields, David Bowie and Antonin Scalia.  As in life, their deaths were observed in completely different manners.  One of them requested direct cremation with no public memorial, service, or observation, while the other had a massive public viewing and a high mass funeral.  Interestingly, in death these two individuals exchanged their lifetime public personas.  Bowie opted to allow the release of his last album to be his parting public engagement, while Justice Scalia lay in state while processions filed past him to pay their respects and his priest son conducted his funeral in Washington D.C.’s most visible Catholic Church. 

     So what did these two very disparate individuals have in common?  Aside from their enormous public statures, they directed what would occur when they died.  Had they not done so, presumably their loved ones would have done what they thought best and hoped that the decedent would approve and appreciate. 

     But is that fair to the ones left behind?  Shouldn’t our loved ones, in their darkest hour of grief, know with certainty what we want? And shouldn’t we, as our final gift, leave instruction to those whom we know will carry out our wishes? 

     It may surprise some to learn that in California, it is not one’s will that conveys our final wishes, but rather a document known as an Advance Health Care Directive. This is a super important document that everyone over the age of 18 should have.  Not only does it allow you to direct your final burial instructions, but it also appoints who should oversee the final disposition arrangements, including organ donation, whether or not an autopsy can be performed, and even the choice of physician. 

     Most importantly, it contains the directives as to whether you want life prolonging measures to be taken, or the “right to die” provisions allowing your appointee to request that no heroic measures be taken  if there will be no significantly measurable quality of life.  Wherever you stand on the issue, isn’t it important to convey that to your loved ones? 

     The most prominent legal cases that deal with the right to die, center around young women, several of whom were pregnant.  In one New York case, the husband was required to allow his wife to remain on life support until the fetus was viable. In another famous German case, the pregnant mother’s parents were able to convince the court to stop the termination of life support until the fetus was viable.  The issue is not whether the courts were right or wrong, or the grandparents, or (as in the New York case, total strangers), were wrong to take to the courts, but whether or not the results were what the mother would have wanted. If so, wouldn’t it have been easier and certainly cheaper if the mother had completed a directive so that everyone in the family and hospital would have known what to do? 

     Aside from the issue of the right to die, the Advance Health Care Directive also allows you to appoint the person or persons that you wish to make your medical decisions if you are unable to make those decisions for yourself. The document meets the federal privacy law (HIPAA) standards thereby allowing your health care providers to discuss your case with your appointee.  Without such written authorization, the health care providers are barred by law from discussing your case with anyone. 

     Sometimes people mistakenly think that only “old” people, near death, should have one of these documents.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Once a person turns 18, they are an adult and the federal (HIPAA) laws prohibit doctors, hospitals, and other health care providers from discussing an individual’s medical condition with any third party without express written authorization to do so.  Thus, if your 19 year old college student is in an accident, you will be without legal authority to discuss his condition with the doctor or hospital, much less make any of his medical decisions even if he is unable to do that for himself. 

     You don’t have to be famous or a legal scholar to direct what happens to you in the event of serious illness or death, but you do have to take action.  Your lawyer can provide you with an Advance Directive For Health Care and they are also available on the California Attorney General’s website.

 

2016 Estate Planning & Tax Law Update - What You Need To Know In A Nutshell

WHAT'S NEW IN FEDERAL AND CALIFORNIA ESTATE LAW

 

It’s that time of the year to recap the current state of the law both federal and state, as it pertains to estate planning, probate, trusts, and wills. 

FEDERAL  

                On the federal level, it’s short and sweet.  The Federal Estate Tax (FET) Exemption amount has increased slightly to $5,450,000.  For married couples who take advantage of portability[1], this means that $10,900,000 can be passed on to their heirs estate tax free.  Under current law, the FET exemption fluctuates annually based on the rate of inflation.  Thus, decedents who died in 2015 are entitled to only $5,430,000 exemption but people passing in 2016 are entitled to $5,450,000.   

                The federal gift tax exclusion amount remains constant at $14,000. Because the gift tax exclusion amount is tied in to inflation rates and is allowed to only increase in thousand dollar increments, it does not change as often as the FET exemption rate.   

                A new law, the Federal Income Tax Consistent Basis Reporting requirement (IRC 1014(f) and 6035, directs that the tax basis of property received from a decedent may not exceed the value as of the property as reported on the federal estate tax return.  If no estate tax return was filed, then the value cannot exceed the value as reported.  In a nutshell, the IRS wants to make sure that trust or estate beneficiaries are confined to the tax basis of the assets that they receive as reflected on the decedent’s estate tax return. For Trustees of estates that exceed the FET exemption, this means another form must be filed with the IRS which identifies the values and the beneficiaries. The form must be filed within 30 days of the due date of the Federal Estate Tax Return. 

CALIFORNIA 

                As for California law, perhaps the biggest change is the passage of the California End of Life Option Act which became effective January 1, 2016.  As could be expected, the regulations are rigorous with regard to the application of the law.  The patient must have a terminal disease and be medically expected to die within six months.  The patient must make both oral and written requests to their attending physician in a timely fashion set by the statute. The patient must self-administer the drug (no one else may assist). Immunity has been granted to doctors who refuse to assist so one may wish to inquire of one’s own physician or preferred hospital if this is something important to the patient. Note that the law sunsets (expires) on January 1, 2026. Presumably the legislators want to see how this law works out for ten years before they make it a permanent law. 

                Surprisingly, another “temporary” law was passed with regard to the Revocable Transfer on Death (TOD) Deed.  As with the End of Life Act, this law is complex and the rules are rigorous.  The idea is that a property (there are specifics on the type of property) can be passed to heirs via the execution and recordation of a particular type of deed. It took the legislature over ten years to pass the law because of the many legal issues that this type of transfer raises (transferor capacity, Medi-Cal reimbursement, creditor  rights, title insurance, to name only a few).  The law automatically sunsets on January 1, 2021. Because there are other ways of accomplishing the transferor’s goals without the many restrictions and unknown issues, many lawyers will shy away from this device.  It is assumed within the legal community that the use of the deeds will create a lot of future litigation work, however. 

THE FUTURE 

                On the federal level, it’s fairly safe to assume that nothing earthshaking will take effect in 2016.  The presidential election being held late in the year will have no effect on existing law.  That said, the candidates are miles apart in their philosophies regarding the estate tax, but those philosophies follow fairly traditional party lines.  The Republicans would eliminate the estate tax altogether and both Ms. Clinton and Mr. Sanders would revert to a FET exemption of $3.5 million with an increase in the tax rate from the current 40% to 45% for Ms. Clinton. Mr. Sanders raises that rate to 55% for estates worth more than $50 million and a whopping 65% for billionaire estates.  He would also reduce the annual gift tax exclusion back to $10,000 per person per year.  

 Keep in mind that the estate tax laws are supposed to emanate from the House Ways and Means Committee and the oval office is theoretically not the originating source of tax law.  Of course the sitting administration can, and often does, put pressure on the Congress to create the law as it wishes it to be and there is always veto power.  The Obama administration has been highly active during his tenure in establishing both the current exemption along with the availability of portability.

 

               

 

 

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[1] Portability allows a surviving spouse to file a claim with the IRS to allow them to “carry” their deceased spouse’s FET Exemption with them. The claim is made by filing an estate tax return (even if no tax is due) within nine months of the date of death. The result is that when survivor dies, he or she will have their personal Exemption, but also the exemption of their deceased spouse.

Big Estate Planning Decisions Loom For Some Couples

BIG DECISIONS LOOM FOR SOME MARRIED COUPLES

At first glance, the steadily rising increase in the federal estate tax exemption (currently $5.25 million and predicted to rise to $5.34 million in 2014), coupled with the recent “Portability” election, would seem to guarantee a much simplified mode of estate planning for married couples. In some cases a simple approach is the best approach, but this if far from true for all married couples.

Simple is as Simple Does

Alright, that’s not really the famous Forrest Gump line, but an obvious simple approach for a married couple would be to determine that their estate is less than $5.34 million and therefore revise their trust to operate as a “Simple” Trust instead of the Bypass (AB) or QTIP (ABC) type of trust that they currently have. In a “Simple” Trust, there is no split of the trust estate following the death of the first spouse. Instead, all of the trust assets remain available to the surviving spouse and he/she has the ability to amend or revoke the trust in its entirety. It is that ability to amend or revoke in full that should have some couples, especially those with children from prior marriages wondering if a “Simple” Trust is the best trust for them. The truth is that many times couples do a Bypass or QTIP Trust NOT for tax reasons, but rather for the ability to ensure that when the first spouse dies, the survivor will not be able to shift assets belonging to the deceased spouse away from the intended heirs of the deceased spouse.

Another aspect of the complex trusts (Bypass or QTIP), is that the Bypass and QTIP Trusts (B & C Trusts) are protected from creditors, whereas the surviving spouse’s trust (Survivor’s or “A” Trust) does not enjoy creditor protection. Thus, if a Simple Trust is adopted, the entire estate will continue to be exposed to creditors. This can be a significant lost opportunity to insulate part of the trust estate, especially if the surviving spouse is engaged in “litigation attractive” activities, i.e. a profession such as physician, dentist, lawyer, broker, accountant, restaurateur, landowner, etc.

Understanding Portability

First introduced in 2010, this concept was made permanent in 2013. (You do understand though, that just because the government says something is permanent, it doesn’t mean it’s really permanent. The current administration said the $5 million exemption was “permanent” but it is already $5.25 as this goes to print. Add to that the fact that under President Obama’s proposed budget, he has suggested a $3.5 million exemption, (and he’s the one that gave us the “permanent” $5 million)! That aside, we feel fairly confident about the “permanency” of portability.) Portability allows the surviving spouse to transfer the deceased spouse’s unused estate tax exemption to the surviving spouse. The surviving spouse may then use this deceased spousal unused exemption (DSUE) to make gifts during his or her life or transfer at the surviving spouse’s death. Thus, theoretically a surviving spouse, who elected portability in 2013, who then dies in 2014, would have his/her own $5.34 million plus the DSUE of $5.25 million for a total of $10.59 million to pass to his/her heirs estate tax free, and this could be done with no trust split!! Thus, some couples who have more than $5.25 million, but less than $10.5 million, might consider doing a simple trust and agreeing between themselves that the surviving spouse will elect portability.

Alas, there are potential problems with such a plan. First, surviving spouse might not make the election. After all, it is an election and the survivor might not get around to it (there is a nine month (from date of death) deadline in which to claim portability with the IRS), or survivor might decide that they will spend or gift away the excess funds during their lifetime in an effort to keep their estate below the then prevailing federal estate tax exemption, and then fail to do so.

Electing portability requires the filing of an estate tax return. If done, the statute of limitations on the deceased spouse’s estate remains open until the statute has run on the surviving spouse’s estate. If portability is not elected, the statute of limitations would expire three years after filing of the first spouse’s estate tax return. Thus, if an estate contains difficult to value assets, the ongoing statute of limitations that comes with portability might not be a desirable outcome, and it might be preferable to have a standard AB Trust and file a regular estate tax return on behalf of the deceased spouse without claiming portability.

Another lurking potential problem: Under current law, even if survivor does elect portability, if he or she remarries, they in effect, forfeit the first deceased spouse’s DSUE. Instead, following a remarriage, the surviving spouse may only access the subsequent spouse’s DSUE, (but this assumes that subsequent spouse dies before surviving spouse, which of course, gets tricky)! The result is that the first deceased spouse’s DSUE gets wasted and potentially leaves the surviving spouse with no DSUE.

Last, there are the issues already mentioned above regarding no creditor protection and survivor’s ability to amend/revoke that accompany the use of a Simple trust.

QTIP To The Rescue

A QTIP or AC Trust can be used to solve many of the disadvantages of portability or the use of only a Simple Trust, while still providing some of the benefits of portability. A QTIP trust is split upon the death of the first spouse between a Survivor’s (A) Trust and a QTIP (“C”) Trust. The Survivor’s Trust would be funded with the surviving spouse’s half of the community property and all of his/her separate property. The QTIP Trust would hold all or a portion of the deceased spouse’s half of the community property and the decedent’s separate property. Spouse would be entitled to income (and possibly principal, depending upon the clients’ wishes), from the QTIP for his/her lifetime. When surviving spouse dies, the assets held in the QTIP go to the first deceased spouse’s heirs. This solves the issue of ensuring that the first deceased spouse’s assets do not get shifted to someone else. Further, a QTIP Trust is protected from creditors.

Another advantage of the QTIP Trust is that upon the survivor’s death, the assets held in the QTIP Trust are entitled to a stepped up basis for capital gains tax purposes. This would not be the case if a standard AB (Bypass) Trust is used. In a standard AB Trust, the assets held in the B (Bypass) Trust are stepped up at the first spouse’s death, but are NOT stepped up again when the surviving spouse dies. This can be problematic if the assets held in the B Trust continue (or are anticipated ) to grow substantially over the survivor’s lifetime.

Why Would Anyone Use a Traditional AB (Bypass) or ABC (QTIP) Instead of an AC Trust?

Those couples who will definitely have a taxable estate at the death of the surviving spouse may still want a standard AB or ABC trust so that the assets that are held in the B (Bypass) Trust are not included in the surviving spouse’s estate at his/her death thereby keeping the appreciation on those assets out of the estate for estate tax purposes. (In an AC type Trust, the assets held in the QTIP “C” Trust are included in the surviving spouse’s estate for federal estate tax purposes.)

Couples who are under $10.5 million may still want an AB Trust to ensure (1) that the first deceased spouse’s exemption will be used, and (2) that there will be no shift away from the first deceased spouse’s intended heirs, and (3) there is reason to believe that the assets held in the Bypass Trust may grow substantially over the surviving spouse’s estate thereby keeping that growth out of the survivor’s estate at his/her death.

Is your head spinning yet?

If not, then maybe you missed your calling to be an estate planning attorney. As illustrated above, there are no longer cookie cutter solutions for all couples. Each couple’s situation presents its own issues and these need to be analyzed individually. What will work perfectly for one couple could be disastrous for another couple. We are already starting to see disappointed widows and widowers who are wishing that they had come in earlier to see us as they are either being forced to make trust splits when there is no tax reason to do so, or they have lost out on opportunities to shelter assets either from future taxes or creditors. There is a mistaken belief out there that because the estate tax exemption has risen, that the surviving spouse either doesn’t have to make the trust split, or that they can enter into an agreement with the future beneficiaries of the trust to not make the trust split. These assumptions are false and if wrongly transacted, are fraught with large problems, but that is the subject of another article.

The moral of the story is that married couples with existing estate plans need to see their attorney so that the above strategies can be applied if it makes sense to do so.

MANY HAPPY RETURNS

I am admittedly, a social mediaholic. I have my business blog, business Twitter, and personal Twitter, Twitter for my dog, Koji, Pinterest, and Facebook accounts. The personal accounts are exactly that: they are intended for my personal interests, family, and friends. Occasionally, a client will find me on Facebook, and request that I “friend” them. I always do so, but I also always caution them that if they are looking for great legal analysis, commentary on the development (or lack thereof) on the federal estate tax exemption amount, or any other hints regarding estate planning, they will not find it on my Facebook. Once that disclosure is made, a number of clients remain as “friends” but are a rather silent minority for the most part.

Last week, an exception occurred, due to Facebook’s own ability to notify its users of friends’ birthdays. I was notified that (let’s call him Ed) was having a birthday. If you are a FB user, you know that you can just tap the link on the birthday notification and wish the friend a happy birthday. For some reason, I decided not to go birthday link route, having not heard anything from Ed in some time, so I went on to his FB page. I was merrily composing my birthday wishes to Ed, which included a wish for Many Happy Returns, when I glanced at the photo on the page just below my about to be shared comments. There was a picture of a coffin with a United States flag draped over it.

I scrolled down the page and much to my shock and surprise, I learned that Ed has been dead since June! Am I the only one who finds this sort of thing creepy?

I warned of this sort of thing in our last firm newsletter when I commented on digital estate planning. I wrote that if you are engaged in social media, you should make mention of “digital powers” in both your Durable Power of Attorney for Asset Management (DPAM) as well as your Will.

Your DPAM should authorize your agent to contact IP and Social Media providers on your behalf and to be able to obtain passwords, shut down or modify accounts, etc.

Your Will should allow your personal representative, be that your executor, (or if you are appointing someone who is not media savvy, or you just prefer someone with a more personal touch than say your corporate trustee, you can appoint a Special Digital Personal Representative), to manage your social media accounts once you have passed away.

There is a tendency to think that because social media is fun, that the companies providing the content are lackadaisical and will just cooperate when the widow calls to ask to take down the account. Nothing could be further from the truth. Google, Yahoo, Facebook, and Twitter, to mention a few, are huge, sophisticated corporations all possessed of armies of lawyers whose jobs it is to prevent their clients from getting sued. Accordingly, they all have strict regulations on who can gain access to, or give orders regarding, their clients’ accounts.


These are new concepts, so it is important for you to make sure that your estate planning documents are updated to ensure that your digital legacy is left as you want it.


Since there were pictures of Ed’s funeral, one has to imagine that someone had access to his account to post those pictures and perhaps they were a proper and fitting tribute to him for a short period of time. But do we really want to get birthday notifications regarding someone who is dead? And what message would I be sending if I had hit the “Share” button when I wrote, “Many Happy Returns”?

New Estate Law Imposes Burden On All - The Hassle of Carry Over Basis

Most people are aware that Congress failed to act with regard to the federal estate tax situation, the result being that currently for year 2010, there is no federal estate tax and in year 2011, the federal estate tax comes back with a vengeance with an only $1 million exemption. Although several senators have promised to do something about the lack of tax revenue coming in for 2010 by way of passing legislation that will have a retroactive effect to all deaths which occur from January 1, 2010, based on their past performance, one would be foolish to accept those promises as an accurate prediction of what is going to happen.

Although seemingly simple, the situation has created a very complicated maelstrom for those estates which were created by those who will be unfortunate enough to die in the year 2010.

Limited Step Up In Basis. For some reason, one of the issues that gets limited attention with regard to all of this is the new limitation in available stepped up basis. Back in 2001 when the law which created this debacle was drafted, the legislators sought to find some way to reimburse the government for its projected loss of revenue for the years in which there would be no federal estate tax. The way that they did this was to greatly limit the step up in the tax basis that beneficiaries would have in the assets that they inherited.

Previous Law. Prior to January 1, 2010, when a beneficiary inherited assets, the tax basis of the assets were stepped up to date of death value for federal income tax purposes. For those of you who are not familiar with the concepts of basis, it can be explained as follows:

“Basis” is the IRS word for “cost”. Technically, it is cost and provable improvements, but for purposes of this article, we’ll just use cost. When an asset is sold, its gain or loss for income tax purposes is measured by subtracting the asset’s basis from the sales price. If there is a gain, it is taxed by both the federal and state governments.

As mentioned above, previously when a beneficiary inherited assets, the government permitted the beneficiary to use the date of death value as the new cost basis on all of the assets. Until recently, this was usually a very substantial income tax benefit because until the last year, most assets were appreciating and the difference between the original cost basis’ and the date of death values was impressive. All of that has now changed.

New law. As of January 1, 2010, the executor of the estate may now allocate only $1.3 million worth of the decedent’s original cost basis assets to increase in basis to their date of death fair market values. For example, assume a decedent owns a parcel of real estate worth $5 million at his death, for which his cost basis is only $800,000. Under the new law, the cost basis will remain at the $800,000, unless the executor elects to allocate all or a portion of the $1.3 million basis increase to that asset.

Note that for married couples, the surviving spouse is entitled to an additional $3 million in basis increase provided that the spouse inherits the property outright or through a QTIP (Qualified Terminal Interest Property) Trust. (The problems that married couple trusts are put to under the new law will be the subject of my next article.)

For the remaining assets in a decedent’s estate, the executor must report their basis at the LESSER of their original fair market value or their date of death value.

Executor’s Duty to Report to IRS. What is obviously essential to this picture is that the executor must know exactly what the cost basis is for all of a decedent’s assets in order to know how best to allocate the $1.3 million basis increase. This will prove to be an enormous problem for many executors since many people don’t have the faintest idea what they originally paid for their individual securities or some of their real estate. If they don’t know, how can their executor be expected to know? But the IRS does expect them to know, and they will have only 9 months from the date of death to find out. The result is going to be a major headache for the executors and their financial team (CPA and financial advisor), as they will be forced to research the valuations at the date of purchase and prove those valuations to the satisfaction of the IRS. Failure to file the financial information with the IRS can result in a $10,000 fine against the estate. In addition, the IRS will require the names of all parties who inherited the assets.

What You Need to Do. The burden is on everyone to make sure that they leave appropriate records with their wills and trusts which can be used by the executor to prove the original tax basis of all of the estate and trust assets. So start photocopying those real estate purchase agreements, original securities orders, acknowledgments of contributions to limited partnerships, etc.

Although the senators are promising to change the federal estate tax exemption, curiously, nobody is talking about the carry over basis, so we are far from a guarantee that this situation is going to change, even if the exemption changes.

IKE TURNER'S PROBATE AS ERRATIC AS HIS LIFE

IKE TURNER'S PROBATE AS ERRATIC AS HIS LIFE

Although clean for several years, two years prior to his death, 50’s rock & roller, Ike Turner, returned to using illicit drugs again, the result of which was his death of an overdose of cocaine in December, 2007. On September 17th, almost two years following his death, his probate trial finally began. It appears that the trial is going to be as erratic and unpredictable as his life.

Turner was married several times, (reportedly somewhere between 5 and 13 times), and had 6 adult children. Although inducted in 1991 in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, it is uncertain as to whether Ike left a sizeable estate. To be sure, he left a home in San Marcos and there are some intellectual property rights but their values have yet to be ascertained.

The vagueness in values, however, has not daunted the claimants. Vista Superior Court Judge Richard Cline will have to sort through an array of assertions to reach his decision.

Ike’s final ex-wife, Audrey Madison Turner, claims that Ike left a handwritten will which left everything to her. Although divorced from each other, Madison Turner claims that she and Ike had resumed living together and that one evening in October, 2007, Ike decided to write a will and designate her as sole beneficiary because she was the only one who took care of him and he wanted her to be happy. Madison Turner is a convicted felon, who confessed to real estate fraud, so her credibility is automatically questionable.

Ike’s children have introduced another handwritten will written one month later that revokes the will leaving everything to Madison Turner.

Added to this is yet another will, handwritten in 2001, which has been offered by Ike’s friend and former attorney, James Clayton. The will directs that all distribution decisions are to be made by Clayton and one of Ike’s adult children. However, if either of the later wills are deemed valid, they would trump this will. Added to that is Madison Turner’s testimony, which was that Ike told Madison Turner that Clayton was an “estate chaser” and was not to be trusted.

Apparently the relations among the litigants are very strained inasmuch as one of the attorneys for them requested extra security for the trial because the attorney expected the trial to be so heated.

Ike Turner, in death, will be yet another celebrity poster boy for the perils of poor estate planning. Here is a picture of someone who knew, or at least felt, death was near, (the last two wills were done one and two months ahead of his death), but didn’t know or care enough to have an estate plan done right. One would think that with a plethora of wives and children, that Ike would have been inspired to do a proper estate plan so that the heirs wouldn’t get caught in the emotional and financial tangles of probate litigation. But, in the words of his most famous wife: “What’s Love Got To Do With It”?