New York Estate Planning Lawyer Blog
LEGALLY DEAD BUT STILL ALIVE
New York like every other state in the nation has a law to deal with people who go missing and are presumed dead. Most states follow the common law time of seven years, although New York has a three year requirement for which it will wait to declare someone deceased. It is not unheard of for a Court to issue a death certificate only for the dead person to show up and show themselves to be very much alive. In Ohio the law prohibits a Court from vacating a death certificate three years following its issuance. Of course there was a case, very recently, in 2013 wherein a man was declared deceased in absentia, passed the three year statute of limitations to vacate or modify the death certificate and appeared in Court to request that the Court nullify the death certificate so he could get a driver’s license.
Another recent case out of Pennsylvania was in the news where a mother of two kids simply disappeared one day in 2002, declared legally dead in absentia and the resurfaced after 11 years, in 2013. Perhaps the strangest case was the case of Ben Holmes, who disappeared in 1980, declared deceased after eight years by his wife and then tried to reconnect with his wife in the 1990s. When he learned she was in a relationship with another man he confronted her and she shot him. He never tried to nullify the death in absentia although he did collect a personal injury settlement from his wife.