BILL NUMBER: S4350

SPONSOR: GOUNARDES
 
TITLE OF BILL:

An act relating to establishing Angelina Liu as the genetic child and
distributee of Wenjian Liu for purposes of the estates, powers and
trusts law

 
PURPOSE OR GENERAL IDEA OF BILL:

To amend the Estates, Powers and Trusts Law (EPTL) to establish that
Angelina Liu shall be considered the genetic child of Wenjian Liu for
purposes of intestate succession

 
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:

Section 1 of the bill provides that Angelina Liu shall be considered the
genetic child and distributee of Wenjian Liu despite any provisions of
section 4-1.3 of EPTL to the contrary.

              

Section 2 is a duplicate of Section 1 with slightly altered language to
reflect changes that will be made to this section of law on February
15th, 2021.

Section 3 provides the two different effective dates for the preceding
sections in accordance with the February 15th, 2021 amendments made
pursuant to Part L of Chapter 56 of the laws of 2020.

 
JUSTIFICATION:

Interested parties who want to determine if the child of a decedent
should inherit an estate when the child is posthumously conceived using
the genetic material of the decedent can normally turn to

Section 4-1.3 of the Estates, Powers and Trusts Law (EPTL) for guidance.
This section outlines several requirements that must be met before the
child can be considered "biological": 1) the child must be born within
33 months of the decedent's death, 2) the decedent must have provided a
written instrument consenting to the use of his/her genetic material and
authorizing a person to make decisions about that material, 3) the
person authorized must then record this written instrument with the
Surrogate Court within seven months of the death, and 4) the written
instrument must have been signed by the decedent in the presence of two
witnesses. While these requirements may be entirely reasonable for
instances in which a death is anticipated, they fail to account for
instances in which it is not.

To demonstrate this point, let us look no further than the case of NYPD
Detective Wenjian Liu, who was tragically murdered in his vehicle on
December 20th, 2014 while on duty with his partner Detective Rafael
Ramos. Det. Liu and his wife Pei Xia Chen had discussed having children
prior to his death, and so th?ihospital set aside Det. Liu's genetic
material so that Ms. Chen could pursue in-vitro fertiiiiition at a later
date if she so chose. During the month of July 2017, more than 21/2
years after Det. Liu's death, Ms.  Chen gave birth to her daughter Ange-
lina. When Ms. Chen went to apply for federal Social Security benefits,
however, she was denied under a federal law which dictates that the
child must be born or conceived prior to the genetic parent's death in
order to receive benefits. If this is not the case, the child is then
considered non-marital and the Social Security Administration (SSA)
turns to applicable state law to determine the biological status of the
child - and this is where EPTL 4-1.3 comes into play. In the case at
hand, Det. Liu and his wife meet only one of the four requirements
outlined above as the child was born within 33 months of Det. Liu's
death. With a death so sudden and unexpected, however, there was no
opportunity for the Liu family to meet any of the other requirements in
the statute.

This legislation provides a pathway for the Liu family to establish
Angelina as the biological heir of Wenjian Liu so that she may receive
Social Security benefits and any other rights and privileges duly
accorded under Article 3 of the Estates, Powers and Trusts Law.  The
sponsor believes the extraordinary circumstances of this case merit an
exception to the stringent requirements of state law.  Providing Det.
Liu's widow and child the ability to receive federal survivor's benefits
to replace his lost wage is the very least we can do to honor the
tremendous sacrifice he made on the night of December 20th, 2014.

 
PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:

New bill

 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:

None

 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect immediately and apply to all estates of dece-
dents where the death occurred on or after November 21st, 2014.
Sections two of this act shall take effect on the same date and in the
same manner as part L of chapter 56 of the laws of 2020.