In this thread, spoke- brought up the question of life insurance payments made to someone who is presumed dead but comes back four years later. He asked (and the question was not answered), whether or not the family would have to pay the money back to the insurance company.
That got me thinking about other aspects of coming back from the “dead.” For example, let’s say we have a man (we’ll call him “Gilligan”) who gets stranded on a deserted island for ten or fifteen years.
Suppose he had $1,000,000 in the bank which his neices and nephews inherited upon his “death.” Can he get it back? What about real property (houses, etc.)?
Suppose Gilligan left behind a wife and minor children. Now then, suppose a year after Gilligan was presumed dead, his wife died, leaving his children as wards of the state. Since his children have no other “living” relatives, they are adopted by some nice families. Now, ten years later, he comes back. Supposing the adoptive families don’t want to give the kids up, does he have any chance of getting them back?
Will the federal government give back any estate taxes collected?
Suppose his wife remarried in his absence? Does she legally require a divorce from either husband?
I’m sure there are other questions, but these are the only ones I can think of offhand. Any lawyers out there who can shed some light?
Thank you for posting that thread Perderabo. I didn’t see that earlier thread. It does address some of the questions I’ve asked (but no definite answers given).
To answer the probable estoppel question in the other thread, I believe it is safe to assume that Gilligan has been trying to get off the island, not secreting himself in order to have himself declared legally dead.
I know that some of these answers will depend on the state that Gilligan lived in and was declared dead in. I will accept any answers with regard to any state (i.e. you may post with an answer regarding the state you are most familiar with).
IANAL, but I would guess that for a non-estate question like the fate of the new marriage or the kids, there is probably no real statutory law and probably not much case law, so it would end up being decided by a judge. Given the extremity of the circumstances, I would guess that whatever the party most affected (the former Mrs. Gilligan or the not-quite-so-little-any-more Gilligans) wanted would be enforced. In other words, Gilligan couldn’t make his wife come back to him, but if she wanted to, it would probably be easy to get the new marriage annuled. Child custody issues would be decided like they always are–messily.