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Fla. court may be arbiter on intent
By Anne Barnard, Globe Staff, Globe Correspondent, 7/13/2002
But in Citrus County, the court may soon find itself refereeing the more high-profile - and, lawyers say, unprecedented - battle over whether Ted Williams's body should stay frozen in liquid nitrogen in Arizona or be cremated and scattered into the Florida sea. Since the Red Sox star died July 5, his elder daughter and her allies have issued a drumbeat of assertions that Williams would never have agreed to his son's plan to cryonically freeze his body in hope of someday reviving it or harvesting the DNA. Relatives, nursing aides, and former teammates swear that Williams wanted to be cremated and that he scoffed at cryonics. Robert McWalter of Concord, Williams's former attorney, said he has a 1991 letter in which Willams clearly states that he wants his ashes dumped in deep water. And yesterday, McWalter said in an interview that attorneys for Williams's estate plan to file a will with Florida courts that calls for cremation. But so far, no one has publicly produced either document. And Alcor Life Extension Foundation, the company that froze Williams's body, requires prospective clients to sign a contract and warns them that a will calling for cremation will invalidate it - raising the possibility that Williams signed such a contract with the company or even showed Alcor a different will. Florida estate lawyers said yesterday that Florida law strongly favors clear written instructions from the deceased on how to handle his or her remains. But if Williams left such instructions, or if he left conflicting ones, the case will come down to a number of other factors: the testimony of people who knew Williams, particularly people who had no personal stake in the outcome; how mentally competent Williams was when he signed documents or made statements; and the attitude of the executor of Williams's will, Alan Cassidy, who has so far stayed neutral. Cassidy's lawyers declined to comment yesterday. Several are even wondering whether Williams's son, John Henry Williams, will take the odd legal tack of saying Williams's DNA is a valuable estate asset that the executor must preserve for Williams's heirs. But a family friend has said John Henry Williams is motivated not by financial gain but by a wish to be frozen alongside his father. A Monday deadline looms for filing a will 10 days after Williams's death - but there's no penalty for late filing and some lawyers take more time if they are trying to get organized, said Jeffrey Baskie, president of Lawyers Weekly in Boston and an estate attorney in Florida for nine years. ''If there's a lot of conflicting issues, within documents or document to document, that's when the court's going to go look at outside sources, anyone else who might be able to shed light on Williams's state of mind,'' Baskie said. ''It's pretty likely we'll have a hearing featuring nurses, caretakers, maybe even Haywood Sullivan,'' the Red Sox former owner. Two friends of Williams, who asked not to be named, said they have been contacted by the lawyer for Williams's eldest daughter, Bobby-Jo Williams Ferrell, and were asked not to talk about conversations in which Williams mentioned cryonics - even if to express doubts about it. Florida lawyers say such testimony could be used to bolster the argument that Williams at least considered cryonics. A Florida law that took effect in January says that ''any person'' may carry out the deceased's instructions on dealing with the body even before a will is filed with the court. Steve Riley, an estate planning lawyer in Tampa, said this means that if there are written instructions from Williams asking to be frozen, John Henry is in the clear. On the other hand, said Alan Bookman, an estate lawyer in Pensacola, ''without clear evidence, the court will not have the authority to deep-freeze Ted Williams.'' He said Florida has a well-established legal procedure for setting out plans to do something unusual such as donating a body to science, and that, if it was not followed, judges would be cautious about endorsing something unorthodox. McWalter said that after 25 years dealing with Williams, he doubts he would have signed a contract with Alcor if in sound mind. ''If there was a contract, wouldn't we have seen it already?'' said McWalter. The Boston Herald has reported that McWalter said a 1997 will was ''ambiguous'' on the subject of cremation, but McWalter denied that yesterday, saying he had seen no such will. The law firm representing John Henry Williams declined comment. ''He discussed this quite a lot,'' said McWalter. ''He was concerned that a grave could be desecrated and that bothered him. He told people, `I will not be at your funeral but neither will you be at mine.''' Meanwhile, the first President Bush, who called John Henry ''a wonderful son'' in a Newsweek article, is not going to intervene on Williams's daughter's behalf, despite her pleas. ''I know he won't,'' said his spokeswoman, Jean Becker, in Kennebunkport, Maine, adding that Bush and John Henry last spoke when John Henry called to inform him about Williams's death. ''He has not been in contact with any family members, nor have we been talking to the press about this. He just considers it a private family matter.'' Estate planning attorneys said the case illustrates an important point. ''Everybody needs to be more clear about their intentions,'' said Baskies. ''Especially if you have children from multiple marriages, it's more important to pre-plan.'' Raja Mishra of the Globe Staff and Globe correspondent Brad Liston contributed to this report. Anne Barnard can be reached at abarnard@globe.com.
This story ran on page A10 of the Boston Globe on 7/13/2002.
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n Florida, the land of retirees, probate courts are used to adjudicating posthumous disputes between relatives of the deceased: Should he be buried next to his first wife or his second? In the state where he was born or the one where his children live? In a casket or an urn?