Happy Valentine's Day
In true spirit, a big chunk of my day was spent researching the law concerning the presumption of death in Massachusetts. We have a wrongful death case with a missing beneficiary -- so I'm trying to figure out if we can have the missing beneficiary declared dead so that the remaining beneficiary can receive all of the proceeds from the lawsuit. Otherwise, it gets paid into the Court and then, six months later, given to the Commonwealth as 'abandoned property.'
It turns out that once alive, you're assumed to remain alive. But if you are absent from your home or residence, leaving for a temporary reason but fail to appear again for seven years, you're presumed to be dead. You can also be presumed dead if you disappear for any time after you face a specific risk of death. The presumption acts as a 'fact', which means it doesn't have to be directly proven. But if there is controverting evidence that the you're alive, the presumption disappears entirely, and then the burden is on the plaintiff to prove by a preponderance that you are dead.
This is called the 'bubble' system of legal presumptions. A legal presumption exists (the bubble) but when faced with evidence which controverts the presumption, the bubble pops and then its just the usual morass of facts for the fact-finder to wade through.
Happy Valentine's Day, all you missing spouses!