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Some of the people who searched rugged Nevada terrain for Fossett after his plane vanished in September also will have to take the stand, Judge Jeffrey A. Malak said. He told Peggy Fossett's attorneys to come back Tuesday, when a date will be set for her to testify.
Under state law, someone must be missing for seven years before being presumed dead. Malak, a veteran Chicago probate judge, said he has granted exceptions only twice, and in one case the person turned out to be alive.
Fossett, 63, renowned for his transglobal balloon flights and other colorful exploits, disappeared after taking off for a pleasure flight in a light plane from a small airstrip near Yerington, Nev.
A long search found no trace of him. The National Transportation Safety Board has issued a preliminary conclusion that Fossett was killed in a crash.
Peggy Fossett wants an order declaring her husband presumed dead so she can transfer his estate into a trust. Fossett made millions trading futures and options on Chicago exchanges.
"This is the first step in the orderly administration of the estate," one of Peggy Fossett's attorneys, Michael LoVallo, said after the hearing.
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 Malak said testimony from Peggy Fossett and the searchers might allow him to grant what he called "the fisherman's exception."
He said he coined the phrase when he declared presumed dead a man who set out to row a boat from the East Coast to Europe. He said the man was spotted 300 miles off the coast of Ireland just before a major storm and was never seen again.
Malak said that in the only other case he has granted such an exception, a sheepish attorney appeared before him a few months later to say the "dead" man had been found.
"Somewhere in the clerk's office there is an order I signed declaring someone legally alive," Malak said, laughing.
[Associated
Press; By MIKE ROBINSON]
Copyright 2007 The Associated
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