Legal Question in Civil Litigation in Minnesota

I am a fiction writer working on a story set in Minnesota. The story involves an unmarried adult male who goes absent in 1993 and returns in 1999; by this point his parents and siblings have reasonably *assumed* him dead for reasons beyond the total lack of contact, sightings, or financial trails (car crashed and abandoned in freezing lake). He had no serious assets or life insurance and was not a fugitive from justice at the time of his disappearance.

My question is this: every source I have personally been able to access through Google, Wikipedia, and following footnotes on various articles mentions that MN has "changed its laws" to allow for declarations of death in absentia to occur after only 4 years--but none say when this "change" happened. Before 1999? At a time that covers disappearances in 1993? Or is it too recent to be relevant?

Granted, as I've mentioned, the character's family has more reason than most to believe he's dead, and the only motive to have him declared so is for emotional closure rather than monetary gain. However, I would still like to be absolutely clear on the law as it was written at that time. How complicated can I make this guy's life (or return thereto)?

Thank you for your assistance.


Asked on 8/22/14, 3:05 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
David Anderson Anderson Business Law LLC

2013 Minnesota Statutes

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Chapter 578 Table of Sections

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Missing Persons

578.16 PRESUMPTION OF DEATH FROM ABSENCE.

An absentee who is missing for a continuous period of four years, during which, after diligent search, the absentee has not been seen or heard of or from, and whose absence is not satisfactorily explained, shall be presumed, in any action or proceeding involving the property of the person, contractual or property rights contingent upon the absentee's death or the administration of the absentee's estate, to have died four years after the date the unexplained absence commenced. If the person was exposed to a specific peril of death, that fact may be a sufficient basis for determining that the absentee died less than four years after the date the absence commenced.

History: 1974 c 447 s 11; 1986 c 444; 2012 c 143 art 3 s 38

Copyright � 2013 by the Office of the Revisor of Statutes, State of Minnesota. All rights reserved.

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Answered on 8/23/14, 4:07 am


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