John McLaughlin’s Estate Gets an Annuity Decision

John Joseph McLaughlin, who died in 2016, most likely did not intend for his former spouse, Christina Vidal, to benefit from life insurance annuities purchased prior to their marriage after their divorce in 2010. In 1996, before their marriage, McLaughlin designated Vidal as the beneficiary of two annuity contracts. In an antenuptial agreement, the pair agreed that upon divorce, a $1 million asset transfer from McLaughlin to Vidal would suffice as a division of the marital assets. Elizabeth McLaughlin, John McLaughlin’s niece and executor of the estate, sought a declaration from a federal district court in D.C. holding that the annuities should pass to the estate, not Vidal.

The district court agreed with Elizabeth and ruled that the prenuptial agreement had effectively revoked Vidal’s right to any income from the annuities. Looking to specific language in the prenup, the court noted that the “parties manifested their intent to vitiate beneficiary designations made before the agreement, like those of the annuities here.”

See John McLaughlin’s Estate Gets an Annuity Decision, ThinkAdvisor, October 31, 2017.

Special thanks to Naomi Cahn (Harold H. Greene Professor of Law, George Washington University School of Law) for bringing this article to my attention.