July 3rd was the 51st anniversary of Jim Morrison’s death. He died in Paris back in 1971, and people are still enjoying the music that he helped create all those years ago. His estate is also making money, just as it has done for the last 50+ years.
Who gets these funds? In this post, we will look at some estate planning mistakes that he made in an effort to raise awareness. You may not be a multimillionaire rock star, but you can fall victim to the same errors if you do not take the appropriate actions.
The First Mistake
Jim Morrison lived in the moment, and he was just 27 years of age when he died. You may assume that he did not have a will in place, but this is not the case. He did create a will, and he left everything to his longtime girlfriend, Pam Courson. In fact, she was considered to be his common-law wife.
He left everything to Pamela in his will with one stipulation. Morrison had one brother and one sister, and he named them as the inheritors if Courson did not survive for at least three months after his death. The problem is, he did not look past that 90 day period.
She did live long enough to collect the inheritance, but that did not happen right away because of legal actions. Early in 1974, the court determined that she was the rightful inheritor. Unfortunately, she passed away in April of that year.
Courson did not have a will or any other estate planning documents. As a result, the intestate succession laws were used to determine the rightful heirs. Her parents were alive, and they were the next closest relatives, so they became the heirs to her estate. Since Pam inherited Morrison’s fortune and rights to future royalties, her estate was extremely valuable.
Unintended Consequences
Jim Morrison’s parents were well aware of the fact that their son’s legacy was going to someone that had no real connection with him. They filed a lawsuit, and the two parties ultimately came to a settlement agreement out of court.
Morrison despised his parents, and we know that he would have wanted his siblings to inherit his assets if Pam was not around. In spite of this, the law is the law, and people that he did not care for at all were enriched.
He should have created a trust to account for eventualities that could come about after Courson’s death. Plus, she had drug and personal problems, so a professional trustee could have managed the assets with a steady hand.
For the record, at this point his parents are dead, and his siblings do control half of the estate.
Federal Estate Tax
There was another huge error that could have been avoided if legal counsel had been involved. At the time of Morrison’s death, the federal estate tax carried a 77 percent maximum rate. The exclusion back then was just $60,000. This means that the portion of the estate that exceeded this amount was subject to taxation. There are estate tax efficiency strategies that could have, and should have, been implemented.
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Mr. Florin is admitted to practice before the courts of the State of Connecticut and the State of New York. He is also a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys, the Connecticut Bar Association, and the Fairfield County Bar Association.