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"Pro-natalism" is a term that has been variously used to describe any and all government policies that favor birth, babies, children, families, and population growth, as well as more focused laws that incentivize childbirth; burden, ban, or criminalize abortion and/or contraception; and otherwise disfavor the childless. Whether and to what extent U S. law is or should be pro-natalist is central to current and ongoing debates about reproductive rights and the deeply vexed question of when life begins. A robust legal feminist literature has aimed to identify and critique pro-natalist law and policy, particularly in forms that constrain the autonomy of those who may become pregnant. Some such laws may even amount to compulsory maternity. This literature has also explored the relationship between pro-natalism and gender- and sex-based inequality more broadly. This Article breaks new ground by identifying pro-natalism in a completely different area of law: the law of decedent's estates. Rather than incentivizing reproduction as such, pro-natalism in probate law undermines autonomy through rules that privilege and naturalize the parent-child relationship as the proper site of post-mortem property transfer. Prior literature has explored the misuse by probate courts of both formalities law and the law of undue influence to favor dispositions within the family and disfavor less traditional plans. This Article, drawing on cases and statutes from, more than forty states, focuses both more narrowly, on the parent-child relationship specifically, and more widely, taking in several aspects of the law of both intestate succession and wills. Intestate succession is an estate plan by default, not chosen by the decedent; but in the law of wills, testamentary freedom and autonomy are loudly proclaimed. Yet a review of interested witness purging statutes, the laic of testamentary capacity, rules for resolving ambiguous language in wills, anti-lapse statutes, the law of pretermission, and the undue influence case law, reveals deep and pervasive pro-natalist bias. Taken together, these familiar components of probate law codify and perpetuate ideas about the connections between parents and their children that are also central to current debates about reproductive freedom and autonomy in intimate life. Uncovering pro-natalism in probate law is therefore part of the larger project of understanding how pro-natalism undermines autonomy in areas of law apparently far removed from reproductive lights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes the failure of the taxpayer in Connelly v. United States and its impact on business succession and estate tax planning. It summarizes the U.S. Supreme Court's opinion on the value of corporate-owned life insurance policy on the decedent's life and shares redemption when determining corporate shares value for estate tax purposes. It discusses the effect of purchase agreements on the valuation of life insurance proceeds in determining the fair market value of a business.

The article focuses on the shift from formalistic will requirements to functionalism, aiming to encourage more wills. Topics discussed include loosening will formalities, attestation requirements, and the use of extrinsic evidence to ascertain the testator's intent, ultimately assessing whether these reforms lead to better outcomes compared to intestacy.

The transfer of the deceased's debts is a common consequence that arises from the phenomenon of succession in both civil and common law legal systems. In this respect, a number of conflicting interests are at stake: namely, the interest of the beneficiaries that need to be balanced against the interests of the different groups of creditors (the ones of the estate and those of the beneficiaries). Common law legal systems are generally considered as the most creditor friendly, for beneficiaries only receive the residue once the estate is fully wound up. By contrast, civil law legal systems are characterised by the dogma of fusion of patrimonies, where the estate is fused with the beneficiary's patrimony. Taking these aspects into account, the article analyses how creditors' interests are protected in the most representative European succession laws, with a view to identifying the merits and shortcomings of each of these models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides a legislative solution to clarify the right of a decedent-spouse's successors to continue divorce litigation after the decedent-spouse's death and outlines a law on the consequences of marital relationship termination by death, divorce or as a result of nullity in Louisiana.

The problem of heirs property is tragic and endemic, especially in minority and low-income communities where family homes and farms are lost because of fractionation through intestate inheritance and failure by heirs to timely probate the land and clear title. But reformers have worked diligently to address the problem by passing the Uniform Real Property Transfer on Death Deed Act, which provides a much-needed mechanism for landowners to avoid probate through execution of a beneficiary deed for real estate. Reformers have also passed the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act, which tries to limit the harms from forced partition actions when co-owners cannot agree on management or when a successor purchases one heir’s share in valuable land and then forces a sale, usually at below-market terms. But between these two remedies is a great chasm for all the properties that are already in heirs property status and for which probate procedures and property rules disadvantage the heirs, penalizing them for managing the property. Property tax rules, the law on adverse possession against co-tenants, marketable title acts and statutes of limitations, and a variety of other substantive and procedural reforms could be enacted to help those heirs currently grappling with heirs property issues. This Article identifies numerous barriers heirs face to resolving heirs property title issues and draws from recent reforms in similar areas to build a case for a new uniform probate act. The Article then provides a sample uniform probate act that would ameliorate the centuries of harm done to vulnerable homeowners by intestacy laws and probate procedures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present article investigates the jewelry and domestic furnishings owned by wealthy women who died in Bursa during the early 1730s, combining the data derived from the estate inventories of the decedents with imagery, both Ottoman and non-Ottoman, dating to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This tentative linkage between the written and the visual has made it possible to 'zoom in' on the manner in which well-to-do females of eighteenth-century Bursa decorated their homes, and speculate about the considerations that induced them to use the most valuable textiles largely for home furnishings as opposed to garments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The doctrine of undue influence has long been the problem child of inheritance law. Undue influence, a hazy combination of fraud and duress, supposedly invalidates bequests that a beneficiary obtained by overriding the volition of a vulnerable testator or settlor. But because relationships are complex, concepts like free will are slippery, and challenges to donative transfers are litigated after the owner dies, courts struggle to apply the rule. Making matters worse, factfinders exploit the principle's vagueness to protect a decedent's family at the expense of non-traditional relationships. As a result, scholars have criticized undue influence for decades, with some even calling for its abolition. Yet this Article examines a little-noticed trend that is cutting in the opposite direction. Responding to the epidemic of elder abuse, several jurisdictions have started to experiment with a supercharged version of the undue influence doctrine. These states have realized that because the cost of pursuing undue influence allegations often dwarfs the contestant's potential recovery, the traditional rule does not do enough to deter pernicious misconduct. Thus, as Congress often creates bounties to encourage plaintiffs to enforce statutes, these lawmakers have incentivized "probate attorneys general" to file undue influence claims. They have done so by recognizing novel presumptions of undue influence, a civil claim for undue influence as a form of elder abuse, and enhanced remedies for undue influence committed in bad faith. We call these updates of the ancient rule the "new undue influence." The Article then offers a ground-level assessment of this phenomenon by analyzing a dataset of nearly 7,000 recent probate and trust cases from California, which has been a pioneer in the new undue influence movement. The Article reaches three main conclusions. First, policymakers have successfully changed the economics of undue influence litigation. Indeed, the Article finds that heirs and beneficiaries who invoke the new undue influence achieve a higher "success rate"--the amount of damages or settlement proceeds divided by the maximum possible recovery--than those who only seek relief under traditional law. Second, contrary to scholars' assumptions, judges and juries no longer seem to manipulate the undue influence doctrine to protect a decedent's family. In fact, there appears to be no meaningful link between case results and the parties' relationship to the testator or settlor. Third, permitting contestants to repackage probate cases as civil claims for elder abuse creates anomalies. Challengers often file probate petitions and civil complaints, opening the door for duplicative litigation, doctrinal inconsistency, and procedural gamesmanship. The Article therefore suggests ways for courts and policymakers to harness the benefits of the new undue influence while minimizing these costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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