Willed To Marry A Woman: Marry a woman or else no inheritance for you!

[WillParkinson]

Willed To Marry A Woman

According to the will of a recently deceased Manhattan businessman, his gay son must marry a woman to receive his inheritance. The son is already married to a man.

A dear old dad left behind a final, unthinkable request for his gay son: get married — to a woman. The edict surfaced in the will of Manhattan businessman Frank Mandelbaum, who specified that none of his money should go to any offspring his son Robert might have if he “not be married to the child’s mother within six months of the child’s birth.” Frank Mandelbaum, 73, died in 2007, and his will prompted Robert Mandelbaum, a Manhattan Criminal Court Judge, to argue in a court battle over the estate that his longtime partner Jonathan O’Donnell is the only “mother” their 16-month-old son, Cooper, knows.

The couple married shortly after Cooper’s birth via a surrogate, entitling the child to a share in a $180,000 trust set aside for Frank Mandelbaum’s three grandkids, Robert declared. The Manhattan Surrogate’s Court has yet to approve a settlement to ignore Frank Mandelbaum’s demand as discriminatory and against New York law. The settlement is the only way to solve the dispute over Cooper, Robert Mandelbaum claims in court papers, because the will “imposes a general restraint on marriage by compelling Robert Mandelbaum . . . to enter into a sham marriage” — which he says violates state law supporting marriage equality.

http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2012/08/willed-to-marry-woman.html

[GodlessBiker]

1. I believe, in NY, you can condition inheritance on getting married, but not on getting divorced...

based upon the notion that it is against public policy to encourage divorce.

It would be against public policy to encourage marriage to only someone of a particular race, so I would think, in NY, where marriage equality exists, the same would be true of a particular sex.

I don't know for sure, but I would think that, maybe, it would be okay to encourage marriage to the mother or father of the children between two people, as in this case.

If he is already married to a man, the Will would require him to divorce his husband to marry a woman. Would a court interpret the Will provision as encouraging divorce? If you have competing claims - marriage equality vs. marrying your child's other biological parent - which wins the day?

[TheMadMonk]

2. Sounds remarkably like you're attempting to justify dad's arseholery as...

...the "best thing for the child". If not, you've waaaaay overthought the doublethink.

Predicating a bequest on marriage in general is one thing. However, the specifics of this situation are as unsubtle as a shotgun in the front row at a wedding. And should be just as illegal.

The message from beyond the grave here, is "You WILL do as I decree, or your child will suffer. You will publically repair the damage your 'lifestyle choice' has done to my manhood, or else."

[GodlessBiker]

3. No, the dad was an asshole. Put another way, if the son were straight ...

and the asshole dad insisted that his unmarried son marry the mother of his son's child in order for the child to inherit, would that be unlawful, even though the dad was, in effect, saying: "You WILL do as I decree, or your child will suffer"? I think that provision in the Will would be upheld, even if the son came out and said he didn't love the mother of his child.

The complications here are that the son is (1) already married and (2) already married to a man.

I think a provision requiring that his son marry a woman, any woman, before his grandson inherited would be held invalid in NY, as predicated on unlawful discrimination against gay people.

I think the Will's provision will be defeated because the son is already married, and requiring that the son marry the child's mother would require that he get divorced, and that is something courts are very reluctant to order a person to do.

[TheMadMonk]

4. Yes! It bloody well should be just as unlawful.

It would be every bit as much an an imposition on the child's mother as on the father.

Going further, bequests which impose conditions of ANY sort on the recipient themselves (or those around them), should be utterly invalid, no matter what the circumstances.

Withholding a bequest, even for the most hatefule of reasons, is one thing, and entirely the choice of the bequestor.

Imposed conditions, on the other hand, are an unanswerable ultimatum.

[loli phabay]

6. though i agree with you in the end its his money to leave and if he wants to be an ass

and put stipulations on it then i would hate to think that last wishes regardless could be overruled.

[joeybee12]

5. The father wins asshole of the year...

I bet he was loved by all who knew him, the stupid jerk.

[Dr. Strange]

7. He left them the greatest gift of all.

Namely, his death.