11 - Commentary on Gruen v. Gruen

Summary

Composing a feminist opinion in Gruen v. Gruen¹ is a challenging project. Using the feminist move of storytelling is not readily available as a vehicle for reframing the case. Given the sparse descriptions by the courts of the roles of the various players, their characters, and whether their actions stemmed, in part, from male aggression render reliance upon them too speculative an analytical baseline.² This case involved a purported gift from a father, Victor Gruen, to his son, and the challenge to the validity of the purported gift by Victor’s widow. On the evidence as we have it, the primary actors with regard to the purported gift, the donor and the donee, were both men, a father and a son. Though Victor had a checkered marital past and the widow, Victor’s fourth wife, did not receive the valuable asset that was the subject of the disputed inter vivos gift, she was neither a subject of any particular attention in the litigation nor an object of bounty more obvious than any other family member.