The plaintiffs in Frederick L. Allen and Nautilus Productions, LLC v. Roy A. Cooper, III,, et al., a four-year civil lawsuit over the rights to video and photographic footage of the recovery of the wreckage of the Queen Anne’s Revenge (the ship captained by the infamous pirate known as Blackbeard), recently filed a petition for a writ of certiorari seeking the United States Supreme Court to rule on the dispute. The History of the Queen Anne’s Revenge In the early eighteenth century, Blackbeard commandeered the slave ship La Concorde, renaming it the Queen Anne’s Revenge and captaining the ship for years near the Outer Banks of North Carolina. …
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Accelerating Estate Disputes: The Living Probate Option
North Carolina joins four other states in providing a path to ensure decedents’ assets are distributed according to their wishes upon death.[1] The North Carolina General Assembly recently enacted legislation amending statutes regarding estate administration by adding a procedure for “living probate.” This action is usually commenced by a testator – the author of a will – prior to his or her death where he or she anticipates a challenge to the will’s validity. The court can now declare a will is valid while the testator is alive, thereby preventing potentially more expensive litigation after the testator’s death, when he or she is unable to…
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Non-Conforming Payable on Death Accounts Can Survive as Common Law Tentative or “Totten” Trusts
On August 4, 2015, the North Carolina Court of Appeals issued a ruling clarifying that when a grantor seeks to create a statutory payable on death (“POD”) account, but fails to satisfy the statutory provisions, he/she can still rely on the existence of a common law tentative trust or “Totten” trust as an alternative.[1] The Totten trust, sometimes called a “poor man’s will,” was established after the 1904 New York Court of Appeals decision, In the Matter of Totten. The requirements to create a Totten trust are: (1) sufficient words to show intention to create…
