🚀 go-pugleaf

morgan@ms.uky.edu (Wes Morgan) writes:
}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.
}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.

I think there are two questions here, because the original poster didn't
saw what "access" was:

	access == use of the account

	access == (a copy of) the files in the account

I doubt my heirs would have any claims on the use of my account (and rightly
so).  If it was something I paid, say, an annual fee for (at a public access
site or some such), then perhaps they would (or a refund).

As to whether they have claim to any of the files in my account is a stickier
question.  It would not be unreasonable for an employer to claim that anything
in my account was their property not mine (they bought it with my salary),
hence my heirs would have no claim.  Now, if my employer graciously allowed
me storage of personal files, then I would expect that my heirs would have a
claim on those.  But they would have no more claim on the Ultrix source here,
for example, then they would have on the desk in my office.  The question of
the who/how/when of this division of property would be more difficult than the
physical property in the office, I would think (it's pretty clear who owns the
desk, the boombox, etc., but what the devil is "xyz.17jun92"?).

John
-- 
John Hascall                                       ``Live with it pink-boy!''
Project Vincent                                                              
Iowa State University Computation Center                     john@iastate.edu
Ames, IA  50011                                      515/294-9551 [fax -1717]