From Here to Eternity? Property and the Dead Hand
Beyond_Ideologies
So I finished up this book:
From Here to Eternity? Property and the Dead Hand
by Ronald Chester
Professor of Law New England School of Law
Boston Massachusetts
Vandeplas Publishing, 2007
Chester quotes Ralph Braiser, saying that to the rest of the world the American system which allows parents to disinherit their children is unthinkable.
Most of the rest of the world uses the Civil Law system, where it is very hard to disinherit a child. Chester gives the example of France. If there is one child, then 1/2 of the testators estate is reserved for that child. If there are two children, then 2/3 is reserved for them. If there are 3, then 3/4 is reserved, and so on.
Not all the countries are exactly like this, but there is always a forced share and very few ways out of it.
Chester explains that in America with the implicit and sometimes explicit threat of disinheritance, we are undermining the self reliance ethic we claim to support. We are also disrespecting the parent child bond. Chester explains that there should be some guaranteed share, no matter how strained the relationship has become.
Now in the Common Law countries, the United States is the only one which has not enacted some provision for Wills Variation. It started in England in 1938, out of the recognition that their system was unfair.
Today the place where they go the furthest is British Columbia. There judges favor equal share inheritance and will make it this way unless there is compelling reason not to. A mid 90's case precedent made it clear that there does not have to be any proof of establishment of need. So it makes sense that we would there find the outstanding lawyers, like Trevor Todd of Vancouver.
In one case a mother left $4Meg,and very little to one daughter. It was over the daughter alleging sexual molestation by the mother's boyfriend.
The court gave the daughter an equal share and wrote a decision which chastised the mother for not trying to make amends with her daughter. Very different from common attitudes about such matters in the US.
In B.C. judges are really looking into the nature of family relations, going way beneath the surface, and understanding that if there is animosity it must have come from the parents. They will always look for a justification to award equal shares, no matter what the will says.
In one case a wealthy man disinherited his son because of the son's homosexual orientation. The court just about shredded the guys will. Then as it went to Canada's Supreme Court, that highest court went even further.
It is here that you get the sense that the judges are seeing disinheritance as an offensive act and indicative of familial abuse, and so they are acting to censor the testators.
So clearly a forced share or legitime civil law system, but with this B.C. sort of Wills Variation provision would be best.
Chester says that in B.C. there are far more quality controls on judges than what we have, especially for Probate Judges. But this could be changed.
If you say you care about familial child sexual molestation, which is the predominant form of child sexual abuse, then you must want to resolve this injustice. It is the reason victims stay silent and so the public does not understand what the issues are.
If you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem.
Certainly I would advise no one to ever talk to any kind of a therapist until that person has shown proof of their activism in obtaining justice for the victims of familial abuses, rather than just trying to have them talk themselves out so that they can then be subjected to a kind of second rape.