Riggs v. Palmer

1.On August 13, 1880, Francis B. Palmer made his last will and testament that would benefit Elmer Palmer, the grandson should he survive Francis Palmer . 2.The grandson decided to murder his grandfather to receive his benefits from the will much faster. 3. A will is something created by a person that informs those concerned and the law how to go about their assets once they pass away. 4. A court cannot assume the creator of a will made a mistake because that will mean that the court is assuming the person who created the will is a reasonable person. 5. If the court assumes that the creator of the will is a reasonable person and they change or adjust a will, then, the judgement of the will, will no longer rest on the hands of the creator but to the courts instead. 6. The courts claim they will not reward a man from his crimes under law. 7. If the grandson would have killed someone else, he would have received the assets from the the grandfather. 8. Therefore the grandson should receive the assets from the will. Non-controversial: 1.On August 13, 1880, Francis B. Palmer made his last will and testament that would benefit Elmer Palmer, the grandson should he survive Francis Palmer . 2.The grandson decided to murder his grandfather to receive his benefits from the will much faster. 3. A will is something created by a person that informs those concerned and the law how to go about their assets once they pass away. 6. The courts claim they will not reward a man from his crimes under law. 7. If the grandson would have killed someone else, he would have received the assets from the the grandfather. Controversial: 4. A court cannot assume the creator of a will made a mistake because that will mean that the court is assuming the person who created the will is a reasonable person. 5. If the court assumes that the creator of the will is a reasonable person and they change or adjust a will, then, the judgement of the will, will no longer rest on the hands of the creator but to the courts instead. Response to paragraph 1: I believe my argument still stands to be correct. My issue with the mother with the stolen toy is that you are not rewarding the kid with a stolen toy because the kid him/her self does not know it is stolen. All they see is a new toy. The mother is the one doing the evil deed by giving the kid a stolen toy but that guilt or evil deed lands in the hand of the mother and not the boy/girl. And yes i also agree that this case was not based on moral alone but it did play a small role which is why i feel the morality argument holds little weight. Response to argument 2: I agree that justice is a very vague term and can be shown and represented in many different ways but i cannot agree with you when you mention that doing the right thing may not be fair. For example with the jaywalking anecdote you mention it is not fair that people jaywalk all the time and when someone actually gets a ticket for it, it is not fair but what is not fair would be that people do not get ticketed all the time for doing it. Then that would have eliminated any unfairness but we as a society have non-verbally agreed that we prefer getting a jaywalking ticket once in a blue instead of being "fair" and receiving one every time we do jaywalk because we feel that is fair and cheaper for us. A criminal would get to walk away from a crime due to lack of evidence because the system gives them a fair chance to. So it is very fair. If criminals were not able to defend them selves with their rights that were given to us when this country was founded than that would be the real injustice. Response to paragraph 3: My argument is not that at the time of the will, the grandfather was a reasonable man. My argument is that the court has no proof that if he was here right now, one would not know if he was still a reasonable man. Response to paragraph 4: i was only responding to this comment "If a will is like a contract, then it can also be subjected to the idea of unconscionability" because you state that a will is like a contract so we both agree that a will is a sufficient condition to being a contract but in the above quote you said it is like a contract. Response to paragraph 5: I still feel like that example is not important for this particular argument for the same reasons i gave in the previous rounds.