🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Jul23.215931.13522@menudo.uh.edu> sears@tree.egr.uh.edu writes:
>
>Today we have a very interesting and sensitive situation arise -- a user  
>passed away and now the user's parents would like access to the user's  
>account.
>
>This is a situation that I have not had to deal with before.  There are some  
>ethical considerations that need to be understood.  I am wondering how other  
>Administrators/Managers have handled similar situations.
>

One of my coworkers recently discovered that one of this University's 
systems still had an active userid for her father, who passed away in
1988 (OK, so the bookkeeping isn't quite up to par).

She will be approaching this situation from the legal standpoint of
'executor's privilege'.  In most states, the Executor of an estate
has, by law, access to ALL portions of the estate.  I would strongly
suspect that this access would extend to online resources of the estate.

After all, what if the deceased was working on a patent, book, or article
that could have monetary value to the estate?  In such an example, the
executor would have both the need AND the legal obligation to investigate
those resources.

Check with your local counsel; your mileage may vary.  

--Wes

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MORGAN@UKCC         |       Wes Morgan       |        ...!ukma!ukecc!morgan 
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