Stan Lee Estate Tangled by ‘Magic’ of Valuing Stolen-Blood Claim

Stan Lee, the comic genius behind such heroes as Spider-Man and the Incredible Hulk, passed away on November 12 at the age of 95. One of the many issues with his estate is valuing the lawsuits Lee was a part of at the time of his death, including one suit involving a claim that his blood was stolen and sold without his consent.

His former publicist, Jerardo “Jerry” Olivarez, is accused of transferring millions of dollars from Lee’s bank accounts and  engaging in a scheme to sell Lee’s blood as a collectible. The estate must place a value on the suit so that it can calculate the amount of taxes owed, which must be paid within 9 months of the person’s death.

“If the lawsuit has not been resolved prior to the filing of the estate tax return there’s a big, difficult problem in how do you value that possible recovery that you might get some time in the future,” said Donald Perry, chairman of the trusts and estates department at Phillips Nizer LLP. The charges in the lawsuit are now more difficult to prove as the main witness was Stan Lee himself.

Lee’s estate will likely have to deal with other hard-to-value assets such as his postmortem image and likeness rights, especially as it was such a thrill to fans to find Lee’s cameos in the Marvel Cinematic Universe films. New technology creates the possibility that those cameos may just continue.

See Allyson Versprille, Stan Lee Estate Tangled by ‘Magic’ of Valuing Stolen-Blood Claim, BNA.com, November 14, 2018.

Special thanks to Jim Hillhouse (Professional Legal Marketing (PLM, Inc.) for bringing this article to my attention.