• FreeAdvice has a new Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, effective May 25, 2018.
    By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our Terms of Service and use of cookies.

help

Accident - Bankruptcy - Criminal Law / DUI - Business - Consumer - Employment - Family - Immigration - Real Estate - Tax - Traffic - Wills   Please click a topic or scroll down for more.

klg1981

Junior Member
What is the name of your state? pennsylvania

my mother and father both passed away over twenty years ago. they both died of cancer.
my father worked in the Steel Mill for many years. It was said that they'd both died from asbestos relating to my father working in the Steel Mill. My mother died in 1986 at age 51, and she left my aunt to be power of attorney over her and her husbands estate. there was a lawsuit against the Steel Mill company following their deaths and there was said to be alot of money involved, yet we have no idea what's going on. my aunt has been keeping myself and my brothers and sisters in the dark for years about whether or not their illness was a direct result in my father working in the Steel Mill. sometimes she won't even accept our calls or she brushes us off when we try to ask her any questions. for years neither her nor her husband has worked and their own children have been really well off and i'm wondering if they have been living off of money that belongs to mother and fathers children. what are our rights? do we have a right to look at any documents, like the power of attorney documents or my mother and father's medical records? we haven't been able to lay our eyes onto one single document .she's been leaving us out in the cold for years, even moving away from the family so that we can't visit her.
i'm very suspicious of her motives. does my family have any rights?
please help us!
 
Last edited:


Dandy Don

Senior Member
If you know the city and state where your parents died, then visit or contact the county courthouse probate court for that city and find out if either or both parents had a probate filed opened up for their estate. If a file is there, look in there to see who the executor was and how the estate was handled.

It is possible that the lawsuit might not have been resolved at the time of the probate and that settlement may have been left out of probate, but as a legal heir, if there was settlement money then the executor had a responsibility to split it with the legal heirs, which it seems almost certain that you would have qualifed as such.

Why did you wait so long to check into this? You probably didn't know what your rights were, but I'm hoping that a statute of limitations will not apply here.

It strongly looks like your aunt may have lied by not reporting your names to the court as legal heirs or by somehow lying to get the settlement money by saying that perhaps there were no other heirs but her, but we will wait and see what the paperwork shows before we draw any conclusions.

If you know the name of the steel mill company that this suit would have been against, then mention the name of it.

Eventually you will need the services of an attorney to review the probate file documents and also to find out more information about the wrongful death/asbestos lawsuit filed against the company--it is probably public record. You may have to sue auntie to get your money if she wrongfully cheated you by leaving you out of the settlement. So sorry that greed makes relatives act most irresponsibly!!!

DANDY DON IN OKLAHOMA ([email protected])
 

klg1981

Junior Member
thanks again

you've been such a help to our family. you were right, i waited so long b/c i didn't know my rights. years ago my aunt told my brothers and sisters that we didn't have any rights as long as she was power of attorney. another lawyer told us we'd have to wait for my aunt to die to get any answers.
thank you very much. you've been the only bright light involving this case.
 

Dandy Don

Senior Member
You have been lied to or deliberately misled--you had rights when the death occurred, because auntie's POA expired at the same time the death occurred (but maybe she didn't know that, or maybe she did), and you do not have to wait until auntie dies to get your share of this estate. When you get an attorney, also ask him if that state has laws against abuse of POA--she had an obligation to account for all monies she received and to turn over the account for probate (not keep everything for herself) and if she didn't do this, then she is guilty of abuse of POA and will have to pay that money back.

DANDY DON IN OKLAHOMA ([email protected])
 

Find the Right Lawyer for Your Legal Issue!

Fast, Free, and Confidential
data-ad-format="auto">
Top