The Probate Lawyer Blog

Elvis Presley earned more than one billion dollars during his career … so why was his estate worth only about ten million dollars when he died?  How did things get even worse for his heirs afterwards?  

And what would Elvis Presley say about appearing as a hologram?

This is installment #6 of our Estate Planning Lessons From The Stars series, which is based on the Celebrity Legacies TV show for which we provide commentary as the estate legal experts.  See other articles in the series here.

We've written extensively about the efforts by Eliza Presley to prove that she is half-sister to Elvis Presley and daughter to Vernon Presley, based on DNA and other evidence.  Much of this same evidence also supports Eliza's claim that Elvis Presley is actually alive.  You can get caught up to speed starting here, if you haven't followed this case before. 

It's been more than a year since we last wrote that Eliza's case was dismissed on jurisdictional grounds.  This meant that the court in which she filed her lawsuit was not able to hear the case; rather, the case had to go to a different court. Because of this and other legal hurdles, Eliza has never had her "day in court" to present her evidence to a judge or jury.

As we wrote then, Eliza was at the end of her road -- emotionally and financially -- and was not able to continue with the case.  Trying to re-write the history books, which is what Eliza was literally trying to do, is no easy task.  This is especially true when there are those who will go to extraordinary means to try to stop her.

Let’s face it … Twitter is a social media phenomenon that won’t stop growing any time soon.  Estimates place the number of users at around 500 hundred million.

In fact, it’s getting more and more use even by celebrities who are no longer with us.  Whether it’s attributable to their estates, companies managing their image rights, or other-worldly influences, just because someone is dead doesn’t mean they can’t have an active Twitter account.

This topic got us thinking, and researching.  What are the most-followed official Twitter accounts of deceased celebrities?  Trial & Heirs has the answer.

We’ve done our best to only include actual celebrity accounts.  If you use Twitter and want to follow all of these, we created a Twitter list with all ten.

(All totals are as of March 1, 2012.)

Eliza Presley's paternity lawsuit, seeking a judicial determination that Vernon Elvis Presley is her biological father, has been dismissed from Chancery Court.  The lawsuit, which The Probate Lawyer Blog has covered at length, was based in part on DNA evidence that Elvis Presley is still alive and is Eliza's half-brother. 

I interviewed Eliza Presley and she is very upset about this turn of events.  According to her attorney, Kathleen Caldwell, the lawsuit was dismissed because, after it was filed in August of 2009, the jurisdiction of the Chancery Court in Memphis was legally changed (as of August 2010).  The change means that paternity actions involving unmarried parents could no longer be heard in that court.

This is not the first jurisdictional hurdle her case has faced.  Eliza first filed suit in probate court, but she had to withdraw that case in January, 2009 due to similar jurisdictional grounds.

This recent dismissal was not based on the legal grounds raised in the motion to dismiss that had been filed against her.  [You can read the Amendment to the Motion to Dismiss filed against her here, and read the Response filed by Eliza's attorney]. 

Trying to prove that you are the secret daughter of Vernon Presley, and half-sister to Elvis Presley, is no simple task.  It's much more complicated when the DNA proof that demonstrates this also establishes that Elvis Presley is alive. 

[If you haven't read my prior articles about the Eliza Presley case, you can click here to catch up.]

If you stop and think about it, the task is so daunting to almost be insurmountable.  Eliza Presley and her lawyer are trying to convince a judge to accept evidence and issue an order that would mean what the world believed to be fact, for more than 30 years, was actually fiction. 

This mission is the culmination of Eliza's quest which started almost 20 years ago -- when she had no idea that her search to find her biological father would lead her to this.

No one ever said it was easy trying to rewrite the history books.  But that's exactly what Eliza Presley's lawsuit seeks to do.  She has been battling for two years in court, trying to prove that Vernon Presley (father of Elvis) really is her father too, based on DNA evidence she's gathered.  That same DNA evidence also would show that Elvis is alive. 

So it's no wonder that there are people desperate to stop her.  Elvis Presley Enterprises makes 55 million dollars a year (as of 2009), which would be in serious jeopardy if Elvis was proven to actually be living.  Elvis makes a regular appearance on Forbes' annual list of top-earning deceased celebrities.

Clearly, someone is trying to oppose Eliza's lawsuit in court and stop her from trying to show the world that she is who she says she is and that Elvis is alive. 

Eliza Presley's lawsuit to prove that she is the daughter of the late Vernon Presley, father of Elvis Presley, based on DNA evidence (which also would show that Elvis is alive) was supposed to take a big step forward a couple days ago.  Here's my prior article about the case that explains it. 

There has been a delay.

The same lawyer who tried to oppose Eliza's initial lawsuit (which successfully caused the Estate of Vernon Presley to be re-opened) is now attempting to intervene in this lawsuit.  He filed a motion asking the judge to dismiss Eliza's lawsuit on legal grounds, such as the "statute of limitations" (meaning that too many years have passed, he argued, since Vernon died) as well as that Eliza was adopted by another family (he argued the adoption means she can't become a legal heir of Vernon).

He does not provide any evidence to dispute the facts behind Eliza's claims.  He doesn’t even try to contradict the DNA evidence she’s presented to the court.