Prince Rogers Nelson, the artist formerly known as Prince, died April 21, 2016, without a will and as a resident of Chanhassen, Minnesota. And so begins the saga of determining his heirs.
A trust company has filed a pleading claiming that they had dealings with some of Prince’s financial matters and therefore should administer his estate. Prince’s sister, Tyka Nelson, has filed as sister/heir citing herself and a half dozen other half-siblings living or deceased as heirs to claim the estate, estimated at over $300 million. Since Prince died without a will, Minnesota laws of intestacy apply to determine the rightful heirs/recipients of this fortune. As with every resident of a particular state, the state’s laws of intestacy are the decedent resident’s default estate plan. In other words, Prince technically has an estate plan, just not one he scripted.
Minnesota law provides that the siblings/half siblings and nieces and nephews (children of deceased half siblings) will inherit unless a spouse or children appears to trump them. Just when we thought death law to be uninteresting, Prince’s estate has warranted its own link! In addition to several making claims of funds owed to them by Prince, there are assertions of paternity. Interestingly, “Estabon” filed such a claim alleging facts sufficient to support a “likelihood” that he is Prince’s son and sole heir. Estabon was born June 6, 1985, in New York. He says his mother confirmed an affair in 1984, while Prince was promoting his music in Buffalo, New York. If proven, he argues, he would be the sole heir.
Estabon has requested that he be allowed to submit DNA testing; the request comes with factual and legal allegations that denying him would be a violation of, including but not limited to, due process and the Constitution. This case has it all! And the factual and legal twists just keep coming – Estabon was adopted at age 12 by foster parents outside Poughkeepsie, New York. The arguments interlace the laws of intestacy in Minnesota, which defines a genetic parent as being “a child’s genetic father or genetic mother” with a genetic father as “the man whose sperm fertilized the egg of the child’s genetic mother”. Bremer Trust as special administrator argues that Estabon cannot use the Parentage Act to determine parentage for the purposes of intestacy. Because of Estabon’s adoption and his birth certificate being rewritten as to his parents, they argue he is barred from the inheritance. Apparently, the original birth certificate did not list Prince as the father so further arguments are made that his rights could therefore not have been properly terminated. Yipes!
The next hearing is scheduled for July 28, 2016. There will undoubtedly be plenty more to come! With a huge number of unreleased songs in the estate, there is really no telling how much it might be worth.
The moral of the story: Do not let the unwritten estate plan (the laws of the state’s intestacy succession) and potential litigators determine your legacy!!!
