Inheritance Law For Centenarians

Reid Weisbord posted a summary on Trust & Estates JOTWELL of an excellent article that was recently published by Naomi Cahn, Clare Huntington, and Elizabeth Scott in Yale Law Journal titled, Family Law for the One-Hundred-Year Life, 132 Yale L.J. 1691 (2023). Provided below is an introduction to the summary:

Some cultures revere their elders. Ours does not. Ageism is illegal in certain contexts but remains far too prevalent in modern discourse, often imbued with sexism. Elder abuse and financial exploitation of older persons are on the rise. Even respected voices from the medical community have begun to question the social utility of longevity: At age 57, bioethicist Ezekiel Emmanuel controversially declared that he would refuse life-extending medical treatment in his elder years because he does not believe most people “continue to be active and engaged and actually creative past 75.” Dr. Emmanuel acknowledged the existence of outliers, but his gloomy claim about elder productivity is certainly contestable. Surely you can think of senior “outliers” in your own life. My mother, for instance, began practicing law in 1970 and still enjoys maintaining a full caseload with enough work to overwhelm any first-year associate. I clerked for similarly inspirational federal judges who heard and continue to hear cases in their late 80s. But even conceding that productivity declines with age, I hope most readers would agree that respect, dignity, and fairness under the law should never hinge on one’s economic or creative output.