Q: My former stepfather has a $200,000 life insurance policy. He can no longer afford the $2,000 annual premium and would like his children and stepchildren to take over the payment in return for being beneficiaries, cutting out his estranged wife. He is 56, overweight, smokes three packs of cigarettes a day and is beginning to encounter serious health problems. This feels unseemly, but he is offering. Should I accept?
– J.D., Washington
A: Your former stepfather may dispose of his property as he sees fit. He might simply want some immediate cash, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Had he proposed your taking over his mortgage payments in exchange for an eventual share of his house, I suspect that you would feel less squeamish. This offer is off-putting not because it is unethical but because it is a vivid reminder that you will profit from his death – and the sooner he dies, the better for you. But that is the case for every life insurance beneficiary. So you may accept his offer (but may not buy him cheesecake and Marlboros to hasten the payout).
There may be particular reasons to reject it. If he has obligations to other family members (like the estranged wife), you should not abet his dodge. And your payments must be fair, not discounted to exploit his financial desperation. Absent such things, place your bets.
UPDATE: The stepfather cut out his wife and changed his beneficiaries in March; he died in April before his children or stepchildren made a decision or paid any premiums. J.D. has already received his first check.
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Q: I registered the name of a promising young local athlete as a domain name, intending to create a sports website. Some investors inquired about buying the domain, perhaps for as much as $70,000. Because I could not be sure how they would use it, I decided simply to give it to his family. My brother thought I was nuts to give away something so potentially valuable and urged me to ask the family for a fee based on the son’s future earnings. Fair?
– Anonymous, Texas
A: Not fair. And probably futile. That athlete might be entitled to his own name no matter what you do. Siva Vaidhyanathan, who teaches intellectual-property issues at New York University, notes that an anti-cybersquatting law, in effect since 1999, “can result in a transfer of ownership of a domain name to a legitimate claimant.”
Regardless of what a court might decide, your brother’s get-rich-sweatlessly plan is unethical in that it seeks to exploit this athlete’s success while contributing nothing to it and to deprive him of – or at least charge him for – the use of his own name.
Not that the family would pay up. Fans today can easily find GoPromis
ingYoungLocalAthlete.com or Hoo
HahPromisingLocalAthlete.com or the like. As Vaidhyanathan explains: “Domain names don’t matter as much as they used to. Many blogs have long, complicated nonobvious URLs, but readers easily find them via Google.” UPDATE: Anonymous gave the family the domain name. They offered him a ball autographed by their child, who is headed for a Division I university this fall. Anonymous declined.
Write to Universal Press Syndicate, 4250 Main St., Kansas City, MO 64111, or e-mail ethicist@nytimes.com.
