Let’s say that, on your evening constitutional, you see a little lost dog in an alley, shivering, filthy, and half-starved. Not being me, you take the mutt in, feed it, and clean it up. With only a little effort you manage to track down the dog’s honor, a slightly dotty old woman in a modest, well-kept apartment not far from you. When you return the dog the SDOW seems overwhelmed with gratitude and promises to reward you soon.The dog was in your care for less than two days, and you spent less than $50 on its care while it was.
Six months pass without your hearing anything from the SDOW. Then you get a visit from a lawyer. As it turns out, the SDOW went into her final illness not long after you met her. It also turns out that, all appearances to the contrary, she was loaded. Having no family, she had always intended to leave a small portion of her fortune to the care & upkeep of her dog, and the rest to a specific charity–let’s say a fund to help victims of human trafficking, or cure a deadly disease that is not getting a lot of attention otherwise, or so forth. But after you saved the dog, she decided to change that somewhat. The dog will still get cared for till it dies, but YOU are getting the tes of millions of dollars that would have gone to the charity, which is now getting nothing.
Assuming that the charity in question is one that you yourself think worthwhile, do you take the bequest? Just part of it? If you take any of the money, do you feel at all guilty?
Oops. Multiple answers were SUPPOSED to be allowed, but I was distracted by work. Sorry. I’d ask the mods to close this thread so I could code a new one properly, but I am far, far too lazy.
Not to gratuitously fight the hypothetical,*but what the fuck business does this lawyer have telling me what was in the now-superseded will?
Sure, I’ll accept the bequest. It’s not like turning it down will place the old will back in force. And, after the estate taxes have been dealt with, I’m giving 10% of the remainder to the jilted charity.
Also, I think I’ll set aside a million to pursue my new project of getting that manipulative shyster disbarred. The rest of it, mine-all-mine.
Feel guilty? Not even a scintilla of guilt. I WILL offer up a wry wink to the Universe: Good one, Universe; I’d been expecting my millions to come from winning a multi-state lottery, and you go and blindside me with a slightly dotty old woman! Cheers!
*okay, okay, I’m totally gratuitously fighting the hypothetical, sue me; I’m a millionaire now, thanks to the SDOW.
I take the money without guilt. I spent most of a decade providing legal services to the poor while earning less than half of what I could’ve made in private practice. I figure the multiverse owes me one.
I’d split with the charity. Not because I have to, but because I want to. I believe she has every right to do whatever she wants with the funds, and I don’t feel any guilt that she chose to give it to me. It’s not for me to judge what impact my relatively small gesture had on her. I don’t know her life’s story.
I just think I’d decide in that situation to take half of the money that I wasn’t expecting anyway and donate it in her name to the charity she had chosen before. Everyone wins.
I would take the money, and give some of it to the charity (and some more to other charities that I deem worthwhile). Tithing sounds about right- call the “tens of millions” a total of $20 million after the estate is settled. So, maybe $500,000 to the charity, another $1.5 million to various other charities, and live a life of luxury for me and the pooch on the remaining $18 million.
Nitpick: the dog was provided for separately; its “inheritance” was not affected by yours.
[owlman]
*Your universe *might owe you something (though Athena advises against taking that attitude). The multiverse owes you nothing. There are versions of Oakminster out there that spent most of a decade providing legal services to the wealthy for obscene amounts of money and never did any pro bono work, after all, so it’s balanced out. Likewise, there are Oaks who loved the finale to Galactica, hate football, and still in possession of all their firearms having never taken them on a boat.
[/owlman]
Maybe the slightly dotty old woman left such instructions. She was slightly dotty, after all.
It’s her wishes to do with as she pleases and if she wants to give it to me, I’ll accept it without guilt. That said, I would generally like to donate money to various charities I believe in, and if I suddenly came into a few million, I’d certainly donate a decent chunk of it, not sure how much since it depends on how much I got. So, yeah, I’d probably end up doing more or less pretty close to what she originally wanted, since you stipulate they’d be causes that I believe in, but not out of guilt that she changed her mind.
In fact, I’d probably end up wanting to live a life not all that different from how she was living, that is not living a rich life in the Caymans just because I could. I’d live on what I need, and thus be able to give a lot away and be able to spend more time doing things that could be more beneficial to society than simply denying money out of guilt.
[QUOTE=Skald the Rhymer]
Assuming that the charity in question is one that you yourself think worthwhile, do you take the bequest? Just part of it? If you take any of the money, do you feel at all guilty?
[/QUOTE]
Hahahahahahahaha
Ahem. Excuse me.
Hahahaahahahahaha!
No, seriously. I’d donate a token amount and keep the rest for myself. Sorry, battered women/disease sufferers/Katrina victims/whatever.
As I get older, money gets more important to me, as happens to everyone, I guess. I’d skim off a good chunk of money to buy a decent house, set up a college fund for my kids, set up a retirement fund, and maybe take a year or so off work to get a master’s degree and travel and maybe try my hand at being an author (which, I fear, I’d fail at–I don’t think I have the self-discipline). $2 million ought to more than suffice for all of that.
Everything else would go to charity. But not necessarily the charity the dotty old lady had chosen: unless they had done something specifically to deserve the money from her (and I’m not sure what that’d be–simply currying her favor over years wouldn’t be enough), I’d choose my own charities to give the money to, since it’s mine, not theirs.
I know I’d give something to charity.
I’d give something to charity if I won the lottery.
I’d share with my family and friends as well.
Depends on the total amount, my sons future comes first. Once that is secure, the rest will be donated or given away.
I’ve got the perfect guilt-free solution. Take the bequest and change my will to make the charity my beneficiary. Since I have no dependants of my own I’m just delaying the charity’s donation by a few decades (I hope).
The old lady wanted me to have it, who am I to argue? When I die, maybe some charity will get those millions or maybe I’ll make those millions grow and the next charity will get even more.
If you wish to change the hypothetical beyond what you posted in the OP, feel free. I’ll make my decision about participating in that thread once it exists.
It sucks that you made it a worthy charity. There are plenty of issues out there that I care nothing for, but I’ve got some close-to-the-heart issues that I already give money to. So if it were one of those charities, I’d feel really bad.
