News
Court Overturns Abandonment Case
Candice Lunsford died in an auto accident on June 30, 1999, just nine days after she turned 18. She did not have a will. Her estate filed a wrongful death suit and was able to collect $100,000 from an insurance company. The question that state courts have struggled with for six years — and the N.C. Supreme Court settled on April 7 — is how the money should be divided, specifically whether Candice’s father is entitled to half or whether he legally abandoned his daughter. In reaching its decision, the Supreme Court overturned the legal definition of abandonment established in a N.C. Court of Appeals ruling in the case.