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Carla Spivack, "Let's Get Serious: Spousal Abuse Should Bar Inheritance." 90 Or. L. Rev. 247 (2011)
Professor Carla Spivack’s article advocates that states should adopt laws creating rebuttable presumptions that abrogate surviving spouses’ succession law rights when the preponderance of the evidence shows that the survivors exercised “coercive control” over their deceased spouses. Such coercive control would entail a pervasive pattern of threats, violence, surveillance or related behaviors by a surviving spouse that caused the deceased spouse to live in constant fear. The survivor must have intended to gain power or control over the decedent, who would have been compelled to change her behavior. The statutes would apply to property rights...
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