It is not always NFL or former NFL players that
seem to have estate planning problems, NBA players can also demonstrate
poor or no planning. It is also not often that the subject of the
Estate of Month is still living but the recent health incident of
Lamar Odom is a perfect demonstrates of what happens if you ignore
estate planning.
Odom married Khloé Kardashian in September 2009. While I
would rather have my fingernails pulled out than watch “Keeping
Up with the Kardashians,” he became a familiar face for the
millions of people that watch it. Like many Hollywood marriages,
this one was not meant to last, and Kardashian filed for divorce
in December 2014 over allegations related to Odom’s substance
abuse problems. In a rather quick process, Kardashian and Odom signed
and filed the final divorce papers in July 2015. However, the final
divorce decree had not received final approval from a judge. But,
for all intents and purposes, they were divorced.
Here is where the estate planning issue comes up.
On October 13, 2015, Odom was hospitalized after being discovered
unconscious at a brothel in Crystal, Nevada. Blood tests of Odom
revealed he had consumed large quantities of cocaine.
He was in a coma and placed on life support for a few days before
regaining consciousness.
Odom did not have a living will in place. There is also no report
of Odom having a healthcare proxy in place, either. Thus, under
California law, his legal wife - who was still Khloé Kardashian
– was placed in the awkward position of making healthcare
decisions for him, even though, they were divorced in all but final
legal name. In fact, there were reports that before Odom regained
consciousness that Kardashian was preparing to say her final goodbyes
to Odom .
What does this demonstrate? You should have these important documents in place. That is pretty obvious. With a living will in place, the doctors and Kardashian would have some direction from Odom in how he wanted to be treated if in a coma. She wouldn't be placed in a position of making healthcare decisions by guessing. While it appears she made the correct ones since he regained consciousness, I can imagine other divorces where the decisions could be the wrong ones.
The next step is to make sure you review your documents when life changing events take place. Life changing events include: death, divorce, marriage, births, law changes and the like require you to review your estate planning documents, making sure the life changing event doesn't alter or negate your current estate plan. Don't assume that a divorce automatically takes care of an estate planning issue. Legally ending a marriage will automatically sever a number of relationships and free the parties from numerous legal responsibilities to each other, but an estate plan is a layered and complicated creature, and the intertwined duties that it are created will often linger, even after a divorce is finalized.
Ironically, in the aftermath of the incident, Odom and Kardashian, have decided to call off their divorce. And, paraphrasing Chris Rock, Odom is probably the first man ever whose marriage was saved by going to brothel and cheating on his wife (or almost ex-wife)…go figure.
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