Refusing to “mechanically” apply New York’s Estates, Powers and Trusts Law, an appellate panel has held that a caretaker who secretly married a dying retiree with dementia may not claim an elective share of his estate. Nidia Colon, who married Howard Thomas while his primary caregiver was on vacation, “technically had a legal right to an elective share as a surviving spouse,” but the panel refused to enforce that right, citing the equitable principle that courts must not allow a person to profit from her own wrongdoing.

In a speech to the Federalist Society, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito Jr.