In 1987, Jeffery Rolison filled out a handwritten form naming Margaret Sjostedt as the sole beneficiary of his work retirement account. Nearly forty years after their breakup, Margaret stands to inherit Jeffrey’s $1 million retirement account because Rolison never updated this form. When he died in 2015, she was still listed as a beneficiary.
According to court documents, Jeffrey met Margaret, now named Peggy, at a park while she was playing Frisbee. They started dating in their early twenties and eventually moved to Sullivan County, Pennsylvania. Margaret worked as a “server” while Jeffrey found a job at a Procter & Gamble (P&G) (NYSE:PG) factory. As The Wall Street Journal reports, he joined P&G’s profit-sharing and savings plans in 1987 and filled out a beneficiary card on which Margaret named his cohabitant.
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Two years later Peggy moved. She married the following year and had two children. Jeffrey later began a new relationship with Mary Lou Murray, whom he lived with until they split in 2014. Jeffrey died at age 59, without a husband or children, and the court ruled that Murray was not entitled to the money or his $66,000 house, collection of used BMWs and two cats.
After Jeffrey’s death, his brothers discovered Margaret’s claim to his pension money. Shocked by this, they challenged the claim against P&G in federal court in an attempt to prevent Margaret, now known as Margaret Losinger, from receiving the money. His brother Brian, a mechanic, told WSJ: “We were shocked.”
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In 2020, a court told P&G to give the money to Margaret Losinger. The money is being held while the brothers continue their legal battle. Their lawyer, David Gould, has asked the court to reconsider the case and has filed an appeal. The brothers are not giving up, but changing the court’s ruling will be difficult.
This situation shows how important it is to keep beneficiary forms up to date. These forms, which tell who gets money from things like retirement accounts and life insurance, can be more powerful than a will, even if they were filled out a long time ago. Federal law requires employers to give this money to the last-named individual or a surviving spouse unless the spouse gives up the claim.
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This article They Broke Up in 1989, But Now His Ex-Girlfriend Inherits His $1 Million Retirement Account After Nearly 40 Years originally appeared on Benzinga.com
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