Many wills and living trusts these days are written to provide
for concurrent death events of both spouses, even to the point of
defining concurrent to be within 30 hours of each other.
KR
-----Original Message-----
From: Leap Seconds Issues [mailto:LEAPSECS_at_ROM.USNO.NAVY.MIL] On Behalf Of
Steve Allen
Sent: Friday, June 06, 2003 8:45 AM
To: LEAPSECS_at_ROM.USNO.NAVY.MIL
Subject: Re: [LEAPSECS] timestamps on death certificates
On Fri 2003-06-06T07:37:57 +0100, Peter Bunclark hath writ:
> A husband has a will leaving everything to his wife, or if she dies first,
> to their children. The wife has a will leaving everything to her secret
> lover. They are together in a car crash, and are put on life-support
> systems including heart monitors. They both, sadly, die at around the
> same time; both have a last-recorded heartbeat.
But suspecting her nature, the husband had insisted on a prenuptial
agreement that nullified her inheritance rights until the marriage
passed its first anniversary. After having tea at home with his kids,
they were travelling on their way to a second honeymoon. Their
recorded times of death were both only seconds past midnight.
While preparing for probate some of the lawyers note that the recorded
times of death were after midnight according to the new leap-free UTC,
but before civil midnight as defined by existing statute. During the
ensuing legal discovery free-for-all other lawyers find that one of
the hospital maintenance technicians sets the clocks on the heart
monitors using new leap-free UTC, and another sets them according to
the GMT-based statute.
After the judge awards the inheritance, the losing parties sue the
hospital for failing to maintain standard practices.
Leap Free Civil Time: boldly going where no mysogynistic case law
fantasy has gone before.
--
Steve Allen UCO/Lick Observatory Santa Cruz, CA 95064
sla_at_ucolick.org Voice: +1 831 459 3046 http://www.ucolick.org/~sla
PGP: 1024/E46978C5 F6 78 D1 10 62 94 8F 2E 49 89 0E FE 26 B4 14 93
Received on Fri Jun 06 2003 - 08:57:28 PDT