Leaving aside the details of Miller’s particular story, what was the purpose of passing laws placing a statute of limitations on overturning death rulings? It sounds like the intention was specifically to have live people legally dead, which is weird.
One commentor to that article, claiming to be a law professor, says the purpose of such laws was so that other people couldn’t challenge a guy’s death ruling, not so that the guy himself couldn’t. The distinction seems to make sense - in which case either the judge wasn’t realizing this (as the commentor claimed) or was correctly applying a law which as written failed to anticipate this situation.
But that also seems strange. Does that mean that before 3 years other people can overturn a death ruling? I would have thought once a guy was ruled dead he was dead unless that ruling was appealed. Unless the law just put a time limit on appeals, which I understand to be common anyway, so that there’s in fact no specific SOL relating to death rulings.
It looks to me like the main issue is that if the death ruling was reversed, then his ex-wife would have to pay back the death benefits that were paid out. And presumably, after 8 years the money is long gone. They could try to make this guy pay the money back, but apparently he doesn’t have a pot to piss in, so that would be a pointless effort.
It’s more than 8 years-
“In 1994, the court ruled that Miller was legally dead, eight years after he disappeared from his Arcadia rental home.” He left home in 1986 and was declared dead in 1994. So his ex-wife started getting the benefits in 1994- almost 20 years ago. She certainly doesn’t have the money anymore.
The only way I can see that the death ruling matters is because Social Security surely won’t voluntarily start paying him a benefit next year. They might be willing to issue him a new number so he can work (in fact I’d bet money they would), but since he’s 61 I don’t think that’s the issue. I doubt that solution would satisfy him, because he wouldn’t have enough covered work under the new number to collect next year. I think he somehow believes that if he can get the ruling overturned , he’ll be able to collect his own benefits starting at 62 without having to repay those paid for his kids.
Back to the question - the three year limitation is to have finality. Whether it’s one or three or five or ten years, there has to be a point where it’s final. This guy’s ex-wife shouldn’t have to live the rest of her days wondering if he’ll turn up and she’ll have to repay Social Security , heirs shouldn’t have to spend their entire lives wondering if Uncle Thurston will ever return from the cruise. That sort of thing.
Well, this makes me glad that I don’t live in Hancock County anymore. Umm, or maybe, it scares me. Say that I go back for a visit. People say, “Wendell, what are you doing here? Aren’t you dead?”. “No, of course not,” I say. “I left after I graduated from college.” “Well, we had you declared dead long ago, since no one was sure what happened to you. Besides, we have an obituary for Wendell Wagner that appeared in the local newspaper.” “No, that’s my father, who was also named Wendell Wagner.” “Too bad. Now that you’ve been legally dead this long, we can’t reverse the decision. Anyone could shoot you dead on the spot and not be convicted of anything, since you can’t kill a dead man.”
Yeah, I was wondering: suppose this guy was murdered, or committed a crime himself. Can you prosecute (someone for killing) someone who’s legally dead?
I know what the answer is most likely to be, but I’m dying (heh) of curiosity!
I find this bizarre. This implies that the need for other people to claim this guy’s assets and so on outweighs the needs of the guy himself to get his own property and life.
I don’t think this guy is legally dead. I think “Donald Eugene Miller” is legally dead (assuming this ruling stands up). The law does not recognize this guy as Donald Eugene Miller, even though everyone agrees that that’s in fact who he is.
From a legal standpoint, the actual guy has no recognized identity. To the extent that he’s trying to claim the identity of Donald Eugene Miller, he’s out of luck. But for things that don’t require a legal identity, he would be treated as a live person. They might call him John Doe or something, but that wouldn’t otherwise affect the proceedings.