Virginia’s law regulating viatical settlements has been upheld by a panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
In a viatical settlement, a terminally ill patient sells a life insurance policy to a third party that picks up the premium payments and collects the proceeds when the patient dies, notes The Associated Press.
Virginia’s law requires a company buying policies to pay 60 to 80 percent of face value. A Texas-based company that paid 26 percent of a policy’s face value to a dying AIDS patient unsuccessfully challenged the Virginia regulatory scheme in Life Partners Inc. v. Morrison (VLW 007-2-067).
The panel affirmed a decision by U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson.
1 response so far ↓
1 Ross Hart // May 14, 2007 at 6:03 pm
Great history in this opinion.
What really interested me is that everywhere the Court refers to the “Commerce Clause” in the US Constitution, it precedes it with the word “dormant”. Looks like a message to me.
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