Do you ever feel like once you surround yourself with something, you begin seeing it other places in your life?
My first year we learned about torts, which is where someone breaches their duty to someone else and causes damage.
I began seeing torts anywhere and everywhere. Swimming pools became lawsuits waiting to happen, a child playing in my yard were trespassers, and no one should have people over without signing a waiver that they would not sue as an invitee when the house collapsed on them. Even a simple hug could be assault and battery if taken the wrong way. Let's not even begin contract law--I cringed whenever I heard anyone offer to do something, because they are absolutely bound by contract if another person accepted. At that point, it's just a matter of how we want to measure damages--reliance, expectation, or restitution? Why not tack on some punitive?
Needless to say, I learned quickly not to legal concepts invade my real life. Really, who ever wants to take their work home?
This year, for the first time, I broke this little promise to myself. We had always decided we would make a will when we had kids, or when we had enough assets to actually worry about who got what. But, while sitting in trust and estates, I realized just how awful Kentucky intestacy laws are for spouses if one spouse passes away without a will.
As I read case after case where the wife consistently got little upon her husband's death (let's not even mention the creepy case where the husband adopted his wife to make her his child under the intestacy law, but the court still didn't give her anything), I got a sick feeling in my stomach that the poor, screwed-over wife could easily be me. It also didn't help that the professor kept mentioning that the most important takeaway from the class was that anyone married and living in Kentucky should go home that night and make a will.
Yep, I broke down in the final stretch of law school and gave in. We now have each drafted a will to protect the other. But, I couldn't contain myself it just have a simple holographic one liner saying, "I give everything to my husband." Oh no. Being the crazy law student, our wills include those far-fetched, legalese provisions about simultaneous death and whatnot.
The worst part--I'm only partially ashamed of myself. If you're gonna break your own rule, you might as well go all out, right?
4 comments:
I started my third year of law school when my husband was getting ready to deploy for the first time. We obviously needed a will---what if I was pregnant and didn't know it?!?! What if I died in a car accident, too? Kansas has pretty equitable intestacy, if you die with a surviving spouse, the spouse gets 100%. But, still. I had already taken four tax classes and three estate planning classes. I could not let my family be a "victim" of intestacy, haha. With no law degree yet, we turned to JAG. The poor guy assigned to us was probably SO annoyed because I questioned everything he did and wanted to personalize every single provision.
Now I have taken to harping on my own family members. Like my poor mother who is 54 and does not even have a power of attorney (the horror). I prepared the documents myself and emailed them to her the day before her surgery a few weeks ago. I just can't let it go, haha. Hey, at least I didn't bill her, right? :)
Oh, and don't get me started on trampolines, construction sites or swimming pools. Attractive nuissance! Duty of landowners to tresspassers! Liability!
I had Tort law AND Family law flash backs thanks to you haha Tort law was key in my mia-brains last Spring.
And can we just go BACK to the case you read where the husband ADOPTED his wife as his CHILD? WOW. I love how professors try and give you INTERESTING yet SICK cases to read - to keep it "interesting" haha.
Living in Kentucky myself, I now feel like my husband and I should make a will stat!
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