Re: Wills that state they are to be interpreted under religious law
The courts are not going to get into which version of Sharia law applies. They want to apply “neutral principals of law.” The court will want something that can be applied mechanically and does not violate public policy. There are many cases of wills with religious requirements. Shapira v. Union National Bank 315 NE2d 825 (Ohio 1974). Requirement that son, Daniel Jacob Shapira, marry a Jewish girl the daughter of two Jewish parents within 7 years of dad’s death was upheld by the court. (I think there has been more than one movie with the time limit requirement.) What if he marries a woman who meets the requirements and they join Jews for Jesus? Maddox v Maddox, 52 Va 804 (Virginia 1854) Requirement that niece marry a Quaker was an unreasonable restraint because there were only 5 or 6 Quaker bachelors in the neighborhood. There may have been a different result if the niece had lived in Pennsylvania. Will of Bernard Manger set up a trust to pay for grandchildren’s college education so long a they go to Shabbat services twice a month. Two sons disinherited because they did not marry Jewish women. Senator Joseph Lieberman is the trustee. A settlement rewriting the will was agreed to with the two sons inheriting and their wives converting to Judaism in the orthodox manner. (Wall Street Journal August 25, 2000) Alan Armstrong Law Office of Alan Leigh Armstrong 18652 Florida St., Suite 225 Huntington Beach CA 92648-6006 714 375 1147 fax 714 782 6007 a...@alanarmstrong.com Serving the family and small business since 1984 On Apr 29, 2011, at 7:07 PM, Douglas Laycock wrote: this seems rather obviously to be a homemade will (what American lawyer drafting a formal docunment would talk about kids instead of children), and if he had gotten proper legal advice, he could have left his money as he wanted, and preferred his sons to his daughters, with no limitation in any state except Louisiana I think. So in part the question is whether he can do indirectly what he could have done directly. But that's the question only if Islamic law is clear, and there's only one version on this issue. I don't know the answer, but there are said to be four main schools of Islamic law, and it seems unlikely that they all unambiguously agree on how to divide an intestate estate. But they might. I certainly don't know. On Fri, 29 Apr 2011 16:05:10 -0700 Volokh, Eugene vol...@law.ucla.edu wrote: Any thoughts about the case below? I think I'd raised this question before on the list, but the case offers an especially concrete example: In Alkhafaji v. TIAA-CREF Individual and Instit. Services LLC, 2010 WL 1435056 (Pa. Ct. Com. Pl. Jan. 14, 2010), Prof. Abbass Alkhafajihttp://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07268/820267-122.stm died, and left a will that apparently said, in relevant part, (4) About my pension, the beneficiaries are all my biological kids and my current wife, ... after reducing all costs associated with the house [The] rest of the pension, if any left, should be divided according to Islamic Laws and Sharia (9) In case I have additional monetary benefits from my job, such as life insurance, 401K, 403B or any other retirement funds that I am not aware of, Allah as my witness, They should be divided, after costs associated with the payment of those funds according to Islamic Laws and “Sharia.” The trial court entered an order that concluded with, “(1) TIAA-CREF Individual and Institutional Services LLC, shall make distribution of the pension accounts of the TIAA-CREF certificates ... to the decedent’s surviving spouse, ... in accordance with decedent’s last will and testament dated July 17, 2007, and to his biological children, ... in accordance of the law of Sharia, mainly [sic], one-eighth share to the surviving spouse, ... and thereafter, the remaining balance to be divided, two shares each to the six male children, and one share each to the [two] female children.” This raises two questions: (1) May a court interpret a will — or a contract, deed, trust instrument, or what have you — that calls for the application of religious law (whether Islamic law, Jewish law, canon law, or any other religious law)? Or does the Establishment Clause preclude courts from deciding what, say, Islamic law actually requires, at least if there’s a controversy between the parties about what the “true” interpretation of the religious law should be? Here, one side argues that under Islamic law, the contested provisions of the will are invalid, and that the court erred in relying on the widow’s interpretation of Sharia law; to quote the appellee’s brief, 2011 WL 1573386: The Court’s determination that the pension should be distributed by giving the widow one eighth of the estate, with the remainder going to the children with two parts for each male and one part for each female, was not only a violation of
Re: May American court appoint only Muslim arbitrators, pursuant to an arbitration agreement?
I use a contract clause to arbitrate using a Christian arbitration service. The clause spells out the service much like one would specify AAA to arbitrate. The clause does not give requirements for the arbitrators, just what organization will arbitrate. The reasoning is that the Bible tells Christians not to take their cases to secular courts. Does that make a difference? I was on a christian arbitration panel about 10 years ago. Alan Law Office of Alan Leigh Armstrong 18652 Florida St., Suite 225 Huntington Beach CA 92648-6006 714 375 1147 fax 714 782 6007 a...@alanarmstrong.com Serving the family and small business since 1984 ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
Re: Faith Base Banking
I think the bank was claiming something like Hebrew National's we answer to a higher authority. That is, they would be more friendly, transparent, and helpful than other banks. Maybe they would keep the borrower from getting a loan that could not be repaid. Alan Law Office of Alan Leigh Armstrong 18652 Florida St., Suite 225 Huntington Beach CA 92648-6006 714 375 1147 faz 714 782 6007 a...@alanarmstrong.com Serving the family and small business since 1984 On May 10, 2010, at 2:51 PM, Vance R. Koven wrote: I don't see any particular connection to religion at all here. Everybody seems to be saying they were in compliance with banking regulations, the securities laws and anything else they've been charged with violating. If there is going to be a claim that being a religious bank means they don't have to abide by whatever lending criteria the law establishes (and if they were out of compliance, I'd like to know what Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's excuse was), it would strike me as both a last refuge of a scoundrel issue and a possible estoppel issue if they didn't make any exemption claims when obtaining their banking licenses (I don't know what regulations would apply to the borrower--there are already cases that hold a bank loan is not a securities transaction to which Rule 10b-5 would apply). There are, however, religious banks, in the sense of banks that apply religious law to their products, chiefly Islamic banks that structure products around the interest prohibition. Of course, Western banks also deal in such products for clients to whom the religious prohibitions matter. However, the NYT article doesn't suggest that Integrity was claiming a Christian loan is one that doesn't need to be repaid. Vance On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 2:30 PM, hamilto...@aol.com wrote: Sounds like religious insurance. They typically argue they should not have to abide by regulations and they discriminate on the basis of religion in hiring and in choosing customers As I remember there is a religious exemption for religious insurers in the health care law. Marci Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry -Original Message- From: Volokh, Eugene vol...@law.ucla.edu Date: Mon, 10 May 2010 11:13:12 To: 'Law Religion issues for Law Academics'religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu Subject: RE: Faith Base Banking ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. -- Vance R. Koven Boston, MA USA vrko...@world.std.com ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
