Legion World Forums LEGION OUTPOST Mission Monitor Board Quislet's Super Law Firm...of Space!

Ok, so we have Lex married to wealthy and dying Gertrude. She starts to sign the will, dies mid-signature, Lex finishes it for her, and viola he inherits her fortune. Or does he?

Well yes and no.

Certainly the will is invalid. At a minimum you need at least two witnesses to the signing of a will. (some states require 3) So without those witnesses, that will is invalid. Her family cries "Hurray!" Although they do so a little too soon.

Assuming Gertrude had a previous will, that will would be rended void by her marriage to Lex (he did have on a wedding ring). A divorce also can render a will or parts of it void. So Gertrude would have died without a will or as we lawyers like to say "intestate". Now each state has different rules for dividing an estate that is intestate. Assuming that Metropolis is in New York State, their rule of intestate inheritance is as follows: If there is a spouse and children, then the spouse gets $50,000 and half of the estate and the children divide the other half. If there are no children, then the spouse does get everything.

So the question is did Gertrude have children or not? If she didn't then Lex didn't need to fiddle with a will. If she did, then Lex would have only gotten half of the estate, unless he also got rid of any children and any children they might have had and any children they might have had, etc.

Well, based upon Lex's map, Metropolis is where NYC would be, so the manision/residence would probably have been in New Jersey.

Although to complicate matters, the villaian's white van had New South Wales license plates.

Well, I tried looking for the New Jersey Statutes and found that their statutes are not as user friendly as New York's or Massachusetts. So let's just say that Gertrude's prinicple property was on Long Island, OK?

nope. According to the maps shown, there is no Long Island; Metropolis is the southernmost point in New York State.

PS I was wrong about the NSW plates - they were Metropolis - at an initial quick glance LIS looked like LES, and as a plate I've never seen before, I assumed. My Bad.

Well, even without consulting the New Jersey statutes, I can say that they probably have similar intestate distribution of estates. The main difference between New York's & Massachusetts' is that Mass give the widow $200,000 while New York on gives $50,000 (beyond half of the estate)

A new avatar for post number 8000

8K posts = how many billable space-hours?

remember... time goes by faster in space when there's no gravity.

Quislet... I'm tempted to give you a legal Gordian knot, from LSH canon. Should I?

Go for it.

You'll be getting my bill shortly.

Okay... postboot Mano, thanks to McCauley's manipulations, didn't receive any sort of trial; in fact, he was not even officially arrested. Yet he was placed among the "Fatal Five"; the five most wanted criminals in the UP. And after his aiding the Legion in stopping Tharok's megabomb launches, Mano was simply locked up again in Takron-Galtos; again, no evidence of a trial or even arrest.

Who could he sue, why... and would the crimes he actually committed at Luna and/or Takron-Galtos "negate" any of this in the eyes of the court?

(I'm leaving out the argument about what liability McCauley would face for Angtu itself, since I'd figured he'd started immediately after Mano made himself known to destroy any "paper trails" in his corporate records. So between that and Angtu's destruction... most likely, there's insufficient evidence.)

Hmmm it has been a while since I've read the story.

Do we know for sure that Mano did not get a trial? Most trials of supervillians do occur off panel. Whether the incarceration of Mano was legal depends upon the sovereign status of the lunar settlement and their rule of law. Is the lunar settlement under the jurisdiction of Earth Law (and for argument purposes, we will say that Earth Law is the law system of the United States - the one I am most familiar with) If the Lunar settlement is an autonomous government ruled by a corporate dictatorship, then whatever the corporation says goes, even if that means being locked up without a trial.

Now say that the Lunar settlement and McCauley Industries is under the jurisdiction of Earth Law. Then detaining Mano beyond the time in which is required to contact the proper authorities and have them come and take charge of the situation would most likely be false imprisonment. Then Mano would have a cause of action for a civil suit against McCauley Industries.

Assuming that Mano was legally incarcerated, then the whole Fatal five deal sounds like an after conviction plea bargain. "You do this for us and your sentence will be reduced". Presumably such an agreement had various clauses, such as "if you perform any criminal activity, this agreement is null & void".

I require an opinion on Space Law on behalf of one of my clients....

Dear Mr. Quislet,

Since the destruction of Krypton several decades ago, my planet has suffered from periodic meteor showers composed of the radioactive element kryptonite. This has resulted in escalating costs in our healthcare and enviromental remediation budgets.

Now with the emergence of Ka-El as the self-styled last son of Krypton and since he is the sole survivor and the heir of all things Kryptonian. Can we sue him for the damages I suggest above? I believe that we should be entitled to royalties from the licensing and trade of Kryptonian technology.

L. Luthor

Quislet,

Apologies for not being in when you called - I presumed you hadn't heard me asking to meet with you.

I was just wondering, but - in a purely hypothetical scenario, of course, given the nature of a letter - I'm wondering what the position would be of a prominent citizen of LW if they, through the murder of a powerful figure on another world or similar, caused a declaration of war by that power on LW. And, continuing the hypothetical thought, if, say someone high up in the Security Office aided and abetted this murder and the concealment of his part therein. And that, through hypothetical time travel, I had hypothetically acquired proof of this. What would the legal position of the two figures in question be, hypothetically?

Yours Faithfully
Reboot.

Mr. Luthor,

You may attempt to sue Mr. El. However you would have to prove that Mr. El was the proximate cause of the destruction of Krypton with the resulting meteor showers.

Good Luck on your lawsuit.

Hypothetically?

A person cannot be said to have been the cause of a war legally unless said person was acting on behalf of the government. The foreign world would have the right and ability to request the extradition of said person in order to face the charges leveled against him/her/it. If such a hypothetical world did not avail themselves of extradition and merely attacked the hypothetical home world of the said person, then they would have committed the act of war and not the said person.

Regarding the alleged hypothetical accomplice of said person, he/she/it would also be subject to an extradition as well. The question of whether the government is responsible for the alleged hypothetical accomplice's (henceforth referred to as AHA) acts would depend on whether the AHA was acting in his/her/its official governmental capacity or as a private individual.

As for the question of whether evidence obtained through the use of hypothetical time travel is admissible, I need to review my copies of SHe-Hulk to see if there is a precedent for such evidence.

I hope this hypothetically answers your hypothetical questions.

Thank you. That makes what I need to do quite obvious.

*leaves device*

Dual-purpose. One's a force-field, just in case, the other should be obvious shortly...

(OOC: Comp went down as I was trying to send my reply; here it is.)

Okay, I checked back on the point of Mano's imprisonment. At the end of Legionnaires #20, Mano was captured. This dialogue took place:

McCauley: I've got you now, you criminal! You'd better pray I turn you over to the Science Police!
Live Wire: You'd better pray if you don't!

The Legion, not having the authority to arrest Mano, had to leave Luna then. It was revealed in LSH #78, when Cosmic Boy and Vi are assigned to pick up Mano, that he'd been held by McCauley all this time. As the Legionnaires are arriving at Luna:

McCauley: The Legion of Super-Heroes! Evolvo, see what they want and get rid of them!
Evolvo: I've scanned their Omnicoms, sir. They're under executive order to retrieve your prisoner. We are required by law to admit them.
McCauley: NO! I bribed half the Judicial Council to keep that freak where I can see him!

(next page, after Cosmic Boy & Vi had gotten to McCauley himself)
Cosmic Boy: We're here to take custody of Mano. Seems you're still holding him without legal authority.

So the answer would be yes, Mano was illegally kept captive (and since McCauley deliberately threw rats in the cell, cruel and unusual punishment could also apply?). But due to McCauley's manipulations of the Judicial Council... Mano would probably not be able to get McCauley to court in the first place.

*dusts out office*

Hey Legion Worlders, I was thinking of taking real cases, posting the facts of the case, and seeing how people here would have decided the case.

Would people be interested in doing this?

Sounds good, Quis, but would there be a separate thread for jury tampering and bribing the judge?

Sounds like fun Quis

That's what ex parte PMs are for.

Give me a couple of days to think of a good one.

Actually, I have one in mind now. I may have mentioned it before, but what the hey. It was an actual case that was occurring when I had Family Law. The names are made up.

Mary discovered that she was pregnant. She thought that Joe was the father. Mary & Joe were not married nor did they ever get married. When Little Suzy was born, Joe signed the parternity papers and started paying child support. Joe also held himself out as the father and had regular visitations with Little Suzy, who considered him her dad. When Little Suzy was 7 years old, Mary went to court to ask for more child support money. Joe did not want to pay the increase and started to raise doubts as to whether he was Little Suzy's father. He asked the court to take a paternity test. The court said "no", but on Little Suzy's next visit, Joe had a paternity test performed. The result of the test was that Joe was not Little Suzy's biological father.

The question is, should Joe be required to continue making child support payments?

there is one point of legal information that I will provide after people make their ruling. I also have to say that initially, I felt one way, but things the professor said did change my mind.

Joe accepted the responsibility of paternity at Suzy's birth and reinforced that responsibility by abiding by a child support order for 7 years. His actions may have discouraged Mary from later attempting to determine Suzy's true biological father and seek support from him.

I don't know whether there is an analog to a common law marriage, but 7 years of holding oneself out as the father should come with some security for the child equivalent to an adoption.

He should be required to continue making the child support payments.