Insider Trading:  Sweetheart deals cannot undermine priority of creditors in probate code.

Generally, after someone dies, their relatives open up a probate estate with the court. After the estate is opened, a personal representative is appointed. This person has many responsibilities, one of which is to settle claims with the decedent’s creditors. The Florida Probate Code at section 733.707 provides a priority of creditors. This priority becomes critical in certain situations, like when there aren’t enough assets to pay all the creditors. For this reason, personal representatives are not permitted to make “side deals” with certain creditors that circumvent the priority of creditors set forth in the Probate Code. Read the rest of this entry

FLORIDA PROBATE AND PATERNITY

Wait! Don’t Throw that Away!

Do A Decedent’s Next Of Kin Have A Protected Right In The Decedent’s Blood Samples, Tissue, Organs And Other Body Parts That Have Been Removed And Retained By A Coroner For Forensic Examination And Testing?

I recently encountered a dispute in the context of a paternity proceeding in a probate estate as to who has the rights to a decedent’s blood samples that were drawn during an autopsy. The answer was critical to the establishment of my client as the decedent’s biological child and important in assessing all the parties’ ultimate rights to the Decedent’s Homestead Property.

The Florida Supreme Court has never directly dealt with the issue, which implicates not just the parties involved in the dispute (in my case, the Decedent’s sister, was the Personal Representative and my client was the biological son attempting to establish paternity) but also involves medical examiners, law enforcement, State Attorneys, pathologists and surgeons, and funeral homes. Read the rest of this entry