Thread of legal hubbub

[Shyster]

[MalkinIsMyHomeboy]

7th looks the best


9th and 10th are tied for the worst

[Shyster]

At some point, every lawyer wants to do this. We just can't.

[DigitalGypsy66]

So, unless we have a thread on estates and probate, I guess this will go here.

With both parents now gone ( what a surreal thing to type), we are now gearing up to settle their estate. We have a copy of their will. My sister, who lived the closest to my parents, is power of attorney and de facto executor. She had somewhat of a grasp on their finances, but there are still tons of retirement/annuity/life insurance accounts floating around out there. We are probably going to hire an executor service to help navigate through this process, but I do want to know legally what I/we are supposed to be doing now.

We have our father's death certificate(s) from his death in August. We are waiting on my mom's, which should be ready tomorrow.

Their house was paid off in 2022, and we have a letter from the bank saying as much, but no deed. We do have the title to their X5, which is also paid off. At least one parent had some sort of life insurance, so we're digging into that.

It looks like the three kids (me, my brother, and sister) will split 7/8 of their estate with that last 1/8 going to my older half brother from my dad's first marriage. I'm glad he got something, because he's a grifter and a clown and probably would've contested the will. My mother did want to take him out of the will earlier last week for what it's worth, but none of us want to do that.

My uncle was telling us that this process is something that no one ever does enough to get good at it or fully understand it, and the process will work itself out. That makes sense, I guess.

[dodint]

It's worth hiring an attorney, even for what you might think is a simple estate. It sounds like your dealing with a modest sized estate. You can probably figure out how to navigate through it alone, but the tax implications alone warrant professional guidance.

We hired an attorney when my MIL passed away and it was just one house, one car, and two heirs.

[Shyster]

I agree with dodint for hiring an E&T (estates & trusts) lawyer who specializes in estate planning and administration. The lawyer can assist with tax filings and with preparing and filing the final account for the estate. An E&T lawyer should also have a list of contacts for services you may need, for example, an appraisal service for the personal assets. Here in PA, taxes are paid on the value of transferred estate, so stuff like the house, cars, furniture, etc. all need to be professionally appraised and the appraisal filed with the court in order to generate a number for the tax bill. Not sure that would be the same where you are, but an E&T lawyer would know.

My brother and I hired a lawyer (one of my colleagues who specializes in E&T work) for my mother's estate even though I am a lawyer, because that's not my area of practice and I wouldn't know what to do.

[DigitalGypsy66]

Thanks, all. I think this executor service is a lawyer with various support services. We're definitely going to setup an estate (for us) sooner rather than later. I really wonder why my parents didn't do this after struggling with both of their parents' estates (and lack of planning) back in the day.

[Shyster]

From this week's Short Circuit case roundup from the Institute for Justice:

Many private organizations (for example, the National Fire Protection Association) develop and copyright suggested technical standards for industries, products, and services. Federal and state gov't's then adopt those standards as binding law. Thousands of them! But often, the gov't's don't actually copy-paste those standards into the law books; they just "incorporate by reference." Is it copyright infringement for a nonprofit to post those legally binding standards online for free? D.C. Circuit: Nope. That's what the kids call "fair use." And it doesn't matter, btw, that the private associations themselves make the standards available online … in non-searchable, non-printable, non-downloadable, non-magnifiable format.

https://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/ ... 016393.pdf

Huzzah! I've run into this exact same problem in multiple cases. One of our clients is a company that provides building-inspection services for local townships and the like that don't have their own inspectors. There have been multiple cases where compliance with some building or fire code is material to a lawsuit. Pennsylvania law just says that it incorporates the International Plumbing Code or International Building Code or National Fire Code or whatever, and when you try to find a copy of that, you run into a wall because the agency that publishes it either wants money to see it or makes it available in a useless format. The law should not be behind a paywall.

[dodint]

Yes!

Ran into that problem when trying to sort out the electrical code that governs my garage work. I had to sign up with the NFPA to get a glimpse of it.

[tifosi77]

Not the juiciest of issues, but it's Friday Funday.

Lawyer suspended for trying to attend 2 online CLE programs at once

According to the Sept. 11 sanctions order, Buckley had submitted proof of CLE credits in 2023 to reinstate his law license after an administrative suspension. The material showed that Buckley was trying to get credit for two live webcasts that happened at the same time on June 16, 2022.

Buckley said in an initial response he had attended the two programs using a computer and an iPad. He said he didn’t realize that simultaneous attendance was a violation of bar rules.

Different case:
Maine’s top court affirms suspension of lawyer who asked staffer to take his CLE classes

I have done CLE seminars with attorneys, but never for them.

[Shyster]

So one is only allowed to ignore one CLE program at a time? Good to know.

[MrKennethTKangaroo]

I’m very good at listening for pings and answering poll questions while learning nothing to earn CPE credits for my CPA license

[Shyster]

Glad to see another court adopt Equity.

[Shyster]

This is beautiful. The defendant is a socvit in what sounds like a straightforward debt-collection case. The sovtard ends up sending the plaintiff discovery that admits the plaintiff's entire case. When the judge started to read off the admissions, I laughed so hard I gave myself a headache.

[count2infinity]

"I don't understand anything..."

[tifosi77]

I am not sure that guy really qualifies as a sovereign citizen or if he is just a garden variety idiot. (I mean, same difference amirite.)

[Shyster]

The "offer to contract" stuff he said and invoking the UCC are both sovcit things. I don't know how people who think that state statutes requiring stuff like drivers' licenses and auto insurance don't apply to them also somehow believe that the UCC (which is purely a creature of state statute) does apply to them, but somehow they do. It's very common for sovcits to file all sorts of bogus UCC filings, such as nonsense filings declaring that they are "secured creditors" of themselves, which they think means something.

[dodint]

https://courts.delaware.gov/opinions/do ... ?ID=168260

Footnote 19:

19 Compl. ¶ 53. It has been pointed out to me that, technically speaking, Hermelin’s
purported dilemma was not a “Hobson’s Choice,” which refers to a choice between that
which is offered or nothing at all; i.e., “take it or leave it.” The term originates from
Thomas Hobson (1544-1631), a Cambridge, England, livery stable operator who, after
realizing that his strongest and fastest horses were more popular and consequently
overused, instituted a rotation of horses whereby he presented his customers with a
choice: take the horse nearest the stable door or none at all.
Hermelin’s predicament, as it were, was instead a “Morton’s Fork”: a choice
between two equally undesirable alternatives. The Morton’s Fork gets its name from John
Morton, the Archbishop of Canterbury and later Lord Chancellor under Henry VII.
Morton justified taxing the rich as well as the poor on the grounds that subjects living in
opulence could clearly afford to give generously, and subjects living frugally clearly had
amassed savings and could thus give generously.
Neither a Hobson’s Choice nor a Morton’s Fork should be confused with a
“Catch-22,” see JOSEPH HELLER, CATCH-22, at 45-46 (Simon & Schuster paperback
ed. 2004) (describing a rule whereby a combat pilot declared insane by evaluation would
be grounded, but the pilot must have requested the evaluation, and requests for
evaluations were conclusive evidence of sanity because “[a]nybody who wants to get out
of combat duty isn’t really crazy”), or “Buridan’s Ass,” which satirizes moral
determinism by hypothesizing an ass placed precisely between a stack of hay and a pail
of water, where the ass, which is presumed to go to whichever is closer, cannot make a
rational choice and thus dies of both starvation and dehydration.
20 Again, it is unclear whether KV faced only mandatory exclusion under PPACA § 6502
or whether the OIG also intended to pursue permissive exclusion under 42 U.S.C.
§ 1320a-7(b)(8); however, I need not resolve that factual dispute to reach my decision
here.

[tifosi77]

Somebody billed for it almost 12 years ago. How did that gem show up today?

Also, my old neighbor was one of the B-25 pilots in Catch-22, so.... you know, *hat tip*.

[tifosi77]

(Hmmm, a victim of ye stealth edit)

[dodint]

Yeah, I read it the first time and thought it was a complaint, but it was an opinion. No billing.

[willeyeam]

Can you get pulled over in PA for an expired inspection? My brother did, and I thought for some reason they had to get you for something else first. He just got a warning and it was no big deal but it made me wonder

[dodint]

My wife recently got pulled over for a lapsed registration. It was only like a week overdue. The plate scanners they are now using are effective.

[faftorial]

Can you get pulled over in PA for an expired inspection? My brother did, and I thought for some reason they had to get you for something else first. He just got a warning and it was no big deal but it made me wonder

Yes, they can do that. The only law/rule that I know of that depends on them pulling you over for something else is for a seat belt violation.

[dodint]

I believe tint is a secondary violation as well.