Joint Account Entitlement
Alfred Ashford and his spouse maintain a joint checking account. Ante mortem Alfred held a one-half beneficial interest under the account agreement. After Alfred dies the surviving spouse receives that share outright.
Also known as: antemortem · ante-mortem · before death
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
An adverbial phrase denoting that an act, statement, or condition took place before a person's death. The phrase identifies the temporal boundary separating pre-death events from those arising only after death.
Alfred Ashford and his spouse maintain a joint checking account. Ante mortem Alfred held a one-half beneficial interest under the account agreement. After Alfred dies the surviving spouse receives that share outright.
Alexandra Armstrong's husband deposits sperm before his death. After he dies Alexandra conceives a child. The estate later contests whether the child qualifies as an heir under state intestacy rules.
In January 1993, Lauren Woodward and her husband Warren Woodward, who had been married for approximately three and one-half years and remained childless, learned that Warren had leukemia. The couple arranged for a quantity of Warren's semen to be medically withdrawn and preserved through a process known as sperm banking before he began treatment. Warren underwent an unsuccessful bone marrow transplant and died in October 1993, after which Lauren was appointed administratrix of his estate. In October 1995, Lauren gave birth to twin girls who had been conceived through artificial insemination using Warren's preserved semen. In January 1996, she applied to the Social Security Administration for child's insurance benefits under 42 U.S.C. § 402(d)(1) and mother's benefits under 42 U.S.C. § 402(g)(1). The SSA denied the claims on the ground that the twins were not the husband's children within the meaning of the Act. In February 1996, while pursuing appeals from the SSA denial, Lauren filed a complaint for correction of birth record in the Probate and Family Court against the clerk of the city of Beverly, seeking to add Warren as the father on the twins' birth certificates. In October 1996, a Probate Court judge entered a judgment of paternity based on stipulations of voluntary acknowledgment of parentage and ordered the birth certificates amended to declare Warren the children's father. An administrative law judge conducted a de novo hearing. The judge concluded that the children did not qualify for benefits because they were not entitled to inherit from Warren under Massachusetts intestacy and paternity laws. The SSA appeals council affirmed that decision. Lauren appealed to the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. The court certified the question regarding the inheritance rights of posthumously conceived children under Massachusetts intestacy law to the Supreme Judicial Court because the parties agreed that a determination under state law was dispositive and no directly applicable precedent existed.
View caseAdrian Aguilar's wife undergoes in vitro fertilization after his death. The Social Security Administration denies benefits to the resulting twins. The court examines whether the children are treated as his issue for federal benefit purposes.
Karen Capato married Robert Capato in May 1999. Shortly thereafter, Robert was diagnosed with esophageal cancer and was told that the chemotherapy he required might render him sterile. Because the couple wanted children, Robert deposited his semen in a sperm bank before undergoing chemotherapy. Despite Robert's treatment, Karen conceived naturally and gave birth to a son in August 2001. Robert's health deteriorated in late 2001, and he died in Florida in March 2002. His will, executed in Florida, named as beneficiaries the son born of his marriage to Karen and two children from a previous marriage, but made no provision for children conceived after his death. Shortly after Robert's death, Karen began in vitro fertilization using her husband's frozen sperm. She conceived in January 2003 and gave birth to twins in September 2003, eighteen months after Robert's death. Karen Capato claimed survivors insurance benefits on behalf of the twins. The Social Security Administration denied her application. The U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey affirmed the agency's decision. The court determined that the twins would qualify for benefits only if they could inherit from the deceased wage earner under Florida intestacy law. Under Florida law, a child born posthumously may inherit only if conceived during the decedent's lifetime. The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reversed. It concluded that the undisputed biological children of a deceased wage earner and his widow qualify for survivors benefits without regard to state intestacy law. Courts of Appeals had divided on the question, with some circuits reaching conflicting results. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve the conflict.
View caseAisha Ahmed and two accomplices rob a store. Ante mortem she waits in the getaway car while the others kill the clerk. Prosecutors later seek the death penalty based on her role in the underlying felony.
In July 1978, Gary Tison, serving a life sentence for murder, planned an escape from the Arizona State Prison at Florence with the assistance of his wife, sons Donald, Ricky, and Raymond, his brother Joseph, and other relatives. The family assembled an arsenal of weapons, and Gary insisted that his cellmate Randy Greenawalt, also a convicted murderer, join the escape. On July 30, 1978, Ricky and Raymond Tison entered the prison carrying an ice chest filled with guns, armed their father and Greenawalt, and the group locked guards and visitors in a storage closet before fleeing in a Ford Galaxy automobile. After abandoning the Ford and switching to a Lincoln with a flat tire, the group traveled through the desert. When another tire blew out, they decided to flag down a passing motorist to steal a car. Raymond stood in front of the Lincoln while the others hid armed by the side of the road. A Mazda occupied by John Lyons, his wife Donnelda, their 2-year-old son Christopher, and 15-year-old niece Theresa Tyson stopped to help. The Tisons and Greenawalt forced the Lyons family into the Lincoln, transferred belongings, and drove to a remote desert location. At the site, Gary Tison shot the radiator of the Lincoln to disable it. The family was ordered to stand in the headlights. John Lyons begged for water and mercy. Ricky and Raymond went to retrieve water from the Mazda. While they were doing so, Gary Tison and Greenawalt shot and killed the four victims with repeated shotgun blasts. The sons did not participate in the shooting but continued the flight with the group in the Mazda. Theresa Tyson crawled away but died in the desert. Several days later, the group was apprehended after a shootout at a police roadblock. Donald Tison was killed, Gary Tison escaped and later died of exposure, and Ricky, Raymond, and Greenawalt were captured. The State tried Ricky and Raymond individually for capital murder under Arizona's felony-murder and accomplice liability statutes, as well as armed robbery, kidnapping, and car theft. They were convicted and sentenced to death after a capital sentencing proceeding where the judge found aggravating factors including pecuniary gain and heinousness, and no statutory mitigating factors, though noting their youth and lack of prior records. On direct appeal, the Arizona Supreme Court affirmed the convictions and death sentences. After this Court's decision in Enmund v. Florida, the petitioners sought postconviction relief, but the Arizona Supreme Court again upheld the sentences, finding that the petitioners had "intended to kill" based on their anticipation that lethal force might be used. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the application of Enmund.
View caseThe phrase identifies events or harms that occurred before death. In survival actions an estate recovers only for the decedent's pre-death losses such as medical expenses and pain and suffering. Post-death losses belong to a separate wrongful-death claim if available.
Recovery remains limited to harms the injured party actually suffered before death. Punitive damages against a deceased tortfeasor are barred because punishment cannot be imposed on an estate.
Yes. A party's beneficial interest in a multiple-party account is fixed immediately before death and passes to survivors under the governing statute.
…penalty for felony murder simpliciter . At the other end of the spectrum, eight States required a finding of intent to kill before death could be imposed in a felony-murder case and one State required actual participation in the killing. The remaining States authorizing capital punishment for felony murders fell into two…