Financial Reviews

Ugh. Estate of Parker is a new First District Appellate Court case, and it’s a real slog to get through. How old is this case? Old enough that it’s an appeal from a decision by Judge Malak, who’s been retired for quite some time now. How long is the opinion? 30(!) pages. (PDF is here.)

There’s a lot going on in Parker, most of it procedural, but the important thing for my purposes is what the case tells us about claims in probate. Some background:

Agnes B. Parker made Sharon McCollom her agent under a property power of attorney in 1999 (she had previously named Ms. McCollom the executor under her Will). After Ms. Parker’s death in 2005, a conflict arose between Ms. McCollom and some of Ms. Parker’s heirs.

As part of this conflict, a citation to discover information was filed against Ms. McCollom. As I previously discussed (in this post from 2005), a citation is an action you initiate when you believe someone is holding property rightfully belonging to a probate estate.

Ms. McCollom and the heirs had a VERY lengthy back-and-forth, and the heirs eventually (in 2010) amended their citation to discover to turn it into a citation to recover. (I discussed this amending process here, citing an article by… Judge Malak.)

When Ms. McCollom filed an answer to the heirs’ amended citation to recover, she also filed a counterclaim, seeking compensation for work she performed for Ms. Parker during Ms. Parker’s lifetime. (The amount of the claim: $225,500 plus interest.)

The problem with this counterclaim: under Section 18-12(b) of the Illinois Probate Act, all claims are barred if not filed within 2 years after the decedent’s death. Obviously Ms. McCollom’s claim was filed 5 years after Ms. Parker’s death.

Is there an exception that would allow Ms. McCollom’s claim to succeed? The Court here ruled that there is not. In so ruling, the Court indicated how to analyze the barring of claims in probate:

1. The time period to file a claim (as set forth in Section 18-12(b)) “is a grant of jurisdiction, not a general statute of limitations.” In other words, if you file your claim after the two-year period, a court has no power (no jurisdiction) to hear your claim.

2. The statutory period is mandatory — no exceptions.

I understand the above. I also understand why the Court here would favor the use of Section 18-12(b) — which specifically applies to probate cases — over Section 13-207 of the Code of Civil Procedure (which is more general, and which would seem to allow the pleading of a counterclaim otherwise barred by the statute of limitations if the initial action is not yet barred).

But what I don’t understand is the Court’s attempt to distinguish the present case from an older (1987) First District case called Estate of Rice. Rice involved a similar situation (with a counterclaim filed more than two years after a decedent’s death) and a different outcome. But the Court in Parker focuses on the fact that — unlike in Rice — the delay here was Ms. McCollom’s fault. Yet how can such individual facts be important when you’ve established that the statutory period is (1) jurisdictional and (2) mandatory, with no exceptions?

Continuing my breakdown of common all-risk insurance policy exclusions, I turn this week, to the smog, smoke, vapor or gas exclusion. While one might think that this type of exclusion would apply only to industrial or commercial properties, it can apply to homeowners’ claims as well, and it is important for all policyholders to understand.

One common issue that arises when this exclusion becomes relevant is how to define smoke, vapors or smog. Does the term smoke include harmful vapors? Do vapors differ from smoke, especially if they cannot be seen? A clear illustration of this is found in K & Lee Corp. v. Scottsdale Insurance Co., 769 F. Supp 870 (E.D. Pa. 1

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This article belongs to the Global food crisis story arc.

The global agriculture supply situation has worsened and a failure to boost food production fast enough to meet demand may lead to shortages, said investor Jim Rogers. “We’ve got to do something or we’re going to have no food at any price at times in the next few years,” Rogers said in a Bloomberg TV interview. Monthly food prices tracked by the FAO have surged 9 times in the past 11 months, as global demand for corn and wheat outstripped production and drought and flooding ravaged harvests. The World Bank estimates higher food prices have pushed 44 million more people into poverty.

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Hurricane Irene is barreling toward North Carolina, where a hurricane warning is in effect, and hurricane watches have been posted for Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York and New England. Unlike their neighbors to the south, Northeasterners may not be as familiar with hurricane preparedness.

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In the unregulated industry that manufactures the things that many people put on their faces and bodies, almost anything goes. You owe it to yourself and your family to familiarize yourself with the ingredients you look at on the label of sleek salon products or the attractive bottles on store shelves. Then you may want only skin care organic products.

Do you really want to find the same chemicals in your floor and bathroom cleaners as in your facial cleansers? Manufacturing companies use a different word for face wash but not necessarily different ingredients. Scary but true, as a course in chemical nomenclature will tell you.

Avoid the initials TEA, MEA, DEA, and PEG. “Benzyl’ in a chemical means drying and harsh alcohol in the compound. Hyd

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