We suppose that your day began like many others. It would become a day that ended with the dreaded radio call "officer down." Tara O'Sullivan, today a community is in mourning for you - for your ultimate sacrifice. We're at a loss for words. Some of us will say a prayer. Others observe a moment of silence. Some will think how much we take for granted those who protect us each day. Those whose loss we mourn. Those whose work we honor. We will grieve for you - for your family. We think of you. Your youth. Your energy. Your commitment. Your brief life. Tara, we hardly knew ye. [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zx5d5J48S00[/embed][...]

Tom Petty was an American original, a singer, a songwriter, an actor, and an instrumentalist who formed the iconic group Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers in 1976. By the time of his death in 2017 at age 66 from of an accidental drug overdose, his music catalog was worth in the tens of millions. Like many estates of successful rock ‘n roll musicians, Petty left behind an extended family: children from a first marriage, two daughters named Adria and Annakim, and a widowed stepmother named Dana. My recent book, Alzheimer’s, Widowed Stepmothers & Estate Crimes, highlights some of the persistent issues between children of first marriages and widowed stepmothers. Even in best case scenarios, widowed stepmothers and their stepchild[...]

Determining actual ownership of bank accounts after the death of a loved one can be challenging. There can be real differences in what the parties to the accounts, the beneficiaries of a trust, and the heirs of an estate believe and what they want. It is difficult at times to find a blueprint in which to operate. A 2017 California Court of Appeal decision (Higgins v. Higgins) helps to identify some basic guideposts for ownership determination. The case arose from a lawsuit brought by the personal representative of an estate against a wife who agreed to hold funds in trust for her husband’s stepmother. After her husband’s death she changed the form of the accounts and used the funds for her own purposes. The Appellate Court concluded [...]

In May 1968, I attend a Doors concert at the Santa Clara Fairgrounds. It is the third time I see The Doors. Jim Morrison is going downhill. Between songs he sites on the Santa Clara stage with a Jack Daniel’s bottle by his side. Unfortunately, Morrison’s self-destructive behavior led to a premature death three years later at the age of 27 from what may have been a heroin overdose. Even today, there is no definitive cause of death listed for him – some believe it could have been congestive heart failure or a heart attack. Either way, when he died, his net worth was a relatively modest $400,000. He was unmarried but had a common law wife named Pamela Courson, and in his will, he left everything to her. As was typical of rock st[...]

Even today, almost 12 years after she died, you only have to say the words “Queen of Mean” to know we’re talking about the late billionaire heiress, Leona Helmsley. She was known to the public for her excessive thriftiness and unwillingness to pay contractors, but she is also remembered for having served 19 months in prison for tax evasion. Ironically, while she was a social pariah and much vilified in the press, most people don’t recall that she had a soft spot for animals. Indeed, when she died in 2007 at the age of 87, she left a $12 million trust fund to her Maltese dog named Trouble. Little did she know that Trouble’s bequest would open her estate up to even more trouble. When people make unusual bequests, such as leavi[...]

I think that it was the first or second week of law school when I first heard the term “officious intermeddler.” I kind of remember looking around the classroom to see if anyone else looked as baffled as I felt. To me, it sounded bad, whatever it was. In the coming days we went on to learn its meaning and for the most part forget about it after our exams. Now, some 45 years later, I’ve found the term and its significance to be meaningful. So, according to one legal dictionary an officious intermeddler is a “person who does something to benefit another without being requested or legally obligated to do so, and is therefore not entitled to seek compensation for his or her actions.” This sounds a little legalese. Let’s think [...]

This is Mike Hackard from Hackard Law. We are a California Law firm that focuses on representing heirs and beneficiaries in California estate, trust and elder financial abuse litigation. Celebrities are not immune when it comes to estate fights - John Lennon, the world-famous musician and member of The Beatles, is a classic example. John left the Beatles, and he also left his first marriage and his son from the marriage, Julian Lennon. It’s said that Paul McCartney wrote “Hey Jude” in 1968 to cheer up Julian, then five, during his parents’ divorce. McCartney described it in part as a message of “I know you’re not happy, but it’ll be OK.” Just 12 years later, John Lennon was gunned down, and Lennon’s family members we[...]

Prudent men and women make estate plans to be long-held and to embody family desires and goals. Heirs and beneficiaries are selected. These selections are unpressured. They don’t reflect smothering demands. Estate heirs and trust beneficiaries experience little surprise from these estate plans. There are other types of estate plans – plans born in secrecy and incited by foul wrongdoing and vulgar greed. Brain tumors and strokes suffered by elders sometimes play an unfortunate part in rousing ready moral trespassers to action against those made vulnerable by grave illness. Those lying in wait for a weakened prey know that time is short. Every day that passes imperils the plans of the wrongdoer. Actions must be quick: Wills and [...]

My law firm, Hackard Law, litigates estate and trust disputes in most of California’s major urban areas. A deposition of the drafting attorney is part and parcel of these disputes. I’ve never heard a drafting attorney admit that he prepared an unduly influenced or incapacitated client’s will or trust. Never. Is this any surprise? How often would a mechanic disclose that he destroyed your car’s engine? A dentist divulge that he filled the wrong tooth?  A barber concede that intentionally cut your hair to look like Moe, the leader of The Three Stooges?  Well, you get the idea. Given the number of drafting attorney depositions that we take, we’re often thinking but don’t express: “What were you thinking?” or “Say Wha[...]

I’m Mike Hackard. Our California law firm, Hackard Law, regularly litigates probate and trust litigation disputes. A significant number of these disputes involve fights between a decedent’s biological children from an earlier marriage and the decedent’s second or third spouse. These cases end up in the California Superior Courts. Cases generally considering the rights of heirs and trust beneficiaries are filed in the probate courts and are tried without a jury. Financial elder abuse cases, cases that can be tried before a jury, are often filed in the civil divisions of the Superior Courts. I’ve written a book that addresses in part fractured inheritance, lost inheritance and disinheritance disputes between widowed stepmothe[...]