Failure to Plan: The Estate of Bobby Fischer

Estate of Bobby Fischer

As part of the materials for the 20th Annual Entertainment Law Institute held in Austin, Texas, I summarized several recent "estate" cases. The Bobby Fischer case is one that clearly falls under the category of "Failed to Plan."

Robert James "Bobby" Fischer died in Iceland from kidney disease on January 17, 2008 at the age of 64 without even a simple will. Now the Icelandic courts are trying to determine his heirs between a Japanese woman who claims she was his wife, a Filipino woman who claims she is the mother of his only child, two estranged nephews, and the U.S Government. In August 2010 it was reported that after exhuming his body, DNA testing shows that Fischer is not the father of the Filipino child.

Read more from the New York Times.

Other estates we discussed during the CLE included Jack Kerouac, Darrell Wayne Perry, James Brown, and Roger Miller.