In Taffaro v. Taffaro, the plaintiff sued his half-sister claiming that she removed decorations and flowers he had placed near their mother’s gravestone.
Plaintiff had placed various items at the grave, including a Christmas wreath, a Halloween ghost, and cards, which were “frequently directed towards defendant” and referencing the parties’ previous dispute over their mother’s estate.
After various counts were dismissed based upon the statute of limitations, the remaining count, seeking damages for conversion, was tried without a jury. At the conclusion of plaintiff’s case-in-chief, plaintiff’s complaint was dismissed. The trial judge concluded that plaintiff had abandoned the property in issue, and that he had failed to prove that the defendant had taken them.
The Appellate Division affirmed. It agreed that plaintiff had failed to prove conversion because he had abandoned the items by leaving them at the gravesite. It noted that the cards and decorative items were “ephemeral” in nature, having been made of paper and left outside. It also noted that the items were placed at the grave with the intention of harassing the defendant, rather than to honor their mother’s memory, and that such items were routinely removed by cemetery groundskeepers. Finally, the court found that the trial had judge correctly concluded that there was no evidence presented that the defendant had actually taken the items in issue.
A copy of Taffaro v. Taffaro can be found here. Taffaro v. Taffaro
For additional information concerning estate planning and administration, visit:
https://vanarellilaw.com/estate-planning-administration/
Categories
- Affordable Care Act
- Alzheimer's Disease
- Arbitration
- Attorney Ethics
- Attorneys Fees
- Beneficiary Designations
- Blog Roundup and Highlights
- Blogs and Blogging
- Care Facilities
- Caregivers
- Cemetery
- Collaborative Family Law
- Conservatorships
- Consumer Fraud
- Contempt
- Contracts
- Defamation
- Developmental Disabilities
- Discovery
- Discrimination Laws
- Doctrine of Probable Intent
- Domestic Violence
- Elder Abuse
- Elder Law
- Elective Share
- End-of-Life Decisions
- Estate Administration
- Estate Litigation
- Estate Planning
- Events
- Family Law
- Fiduciary
- Financial Exploitation of the Elderly
- Funeral
- Future of the Legal Profession
- Geriatric Care Managers
- Governmental or Public Benefit Programs
- Guardianship
- Health Issues
- Housing for the Elderly and Disabled
- In Remembrance
- Insolvent Estates
- Institutional Liens
- Insurance
- Interesting New Cases
- Intestacy
- Law Firm News
- Law Firm Videos
- Law Practice Management / Development
- Lawyers and Lawyering
- Legal Capacity or Competancy
- Legal Malpractice
- Legal Rights of the Disabled
- Liens
- Litigation
- Mediation
- Medicaid Appeals
- Medicaid Applications
- Medicaid Planning
- Annuities
- Care Contracts
- Divorce
- Estate Recovery
- Family Part Non-Dissolution Support Orders
- Gifts
- Life Estates
- Loan repayments
- MMMNA
- Promissory Notes
- Qualified Income Trusts
- Spousal Refusal
- Transfers For Reasons Other Than To Qualify For Medicaid
- Transfers to "Caregiver" Child(ren)
- Transfers to Disabled Adult Children
- Trusts
- Undue Hardship Provision
- Multiple-Party Deposit Account Act
- New Cases
- New Laws
- News Briefs
- Newsletters
- Non-Probate Assets
- Nursing Facility Litigation
- Personal Achievements and Awards
- Personal Injury Lawsuits
- Probate
- Punitive Damages
- Reconsideration
- Retirement Benefits
- Reverse Mortgages
- Section 8 Housing
- Settlement of Litigation
- Social Media
- Special Education
- Special Needs Planning
- Surrogate Decision-Making
- Taxation
- Technology
- Texting
- Top Ten
- Trials
- Trustees
- Uncategorized
- Veterans Benefits
- Web Sites and the Internet
- Webinar
- Writing Intended To Be A Will
Vanarelli & Li, LLC on Social Media