Scrooge

Paulino Ponce died. His youngest daughter alleged that her brothers stole "an estimated $103,000 from Ponce's pockets and personal safe within hours of his death." Such a scene reminds one of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, where the charwoman, the laundress & the undertaken divide the soils taken from dead Scrooge. Perhaps, if Ponce were alive he would look upon his children with the same feelings as his alleged literary likeness:

Scrooge listened to this dialogue in horror. As they sat grouped about their spoil, in the scanty light afforded by the old man's lamp, he viewed them with a detestation and
disgust, which could hardly have been greater, though they had been obscene demons, marketing the corpse itself.

This case gave rise to two useful findings on the scope of discovery and the need for section 850 petitions, which we will examine in turn.

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