Court Spat Follows Crash -- Dubroff's Ex-Common-Law Wife, Widow Wrangle Over Insurance

SAN MATEO, Calif. - When Lloyd Dubroff took off from Half Moon Bay Airport in the small plane piloted by his 7-year-old daughter, Jessica, on her ill-fated, cross-country flight, his wife and former common-law wife stood side by side smiling, waving and clutching his young children.

But the smiles faded the next day when Jessica, her father and flight instructor Joe Reid died when the plane crashed while taking off from Cheyenne, Wyo., in a storm.

Just weeks after the April 11 tragedy, Dubroff's widow, Melinda, filed a claim contesting the right of his former common-law wife, Lisa Hathaway, to receive part of more than $2 million in insurance benefits that Anton Lloyd Dubroff had left for his two families.

Melinda Dubroff is suing Hathaway for half of her $1.5 million in insurance benefits in a lawsuit filed in San Mateo County Superior Court. Lloyd Dubroff, a San Mateo business consultant, was the father of Melinda's 5-year-old daughter and Hathaway's two surviving young children and their late daughter, Jessica. He also had two grown children from another marriage.

Hathaway said she believes Melinda Dubroff now "is going for the whole thing" - all the money, a contention supported by claims filed with insurance companies.

"Melinda is choosing to have my $1.5 million as well as hers," said Hathaway, adding that she has had to take out a bank loan to support her family during the dispute. "I wouldn't think of suing Melinda and taking money away from her. She has a child to support, too."

The legal clash has continued the family's turmoil after the plane crash, which inspired national outrage over Jessica's parents encouraging her to become the youngest pilot to cross the United States.

Hathaway, a spiritual healer, took the brunt of the criticism after insisting that "Jess had every right to live and die with her freedoms." She also spoke out against a federal law passed in response to the crash that bans child pilots from attempting record flights.

Hathaway accuses Melinda Dubroff and her father, Thomas Hurst, a San Jose attorney representing his daughter, of filing a sham lawsuit to deny her the support that Lloyd Dubroff planned for her and their surviving children, Joshua, 10, and Jasmine, 3.

Additionally, Hurst, whom Melinda Dubroff had appointed administrator of her husband's estate, has officially rejected Hathaway's claim for child support from the estate.

Hathaway insists "there are no villains here. Melinda and her father are simply two beautiful people who are mischoosing." But she also has accused Hurst of filing the suit for personal gain and calling the effort "irresponsible, baseless . . . (and) unethical."

Hurst and Melinda Dubroff did not respond to repeated requests for interviews. But in court records, Hurst argues that Melinda Dubroff and her daughter, Kendall, have a right to half - or maybe all - of Hathaway's insurance benefits under community property and child-support rights.

The legal dispute is over three life-insurance policies worth $2.25 million purchased by Lloyd Dubroff. Aside from the two policies totaling $1.5 million designated for Hathaway, Melinda Dubroff was named beneficiary in at least one $750,000 policy.

Hathaway says a fourth insurance policy left Melinda Dubroff an additional $750,000, which she has already collected.

In the lawsuit filed in September, Melinda Dubroff seeks half of Hathaway's $1.5 million benefits and half of $150,000 that she says Lloyd Dubroff gave Hathaway in the years just before his death. Melinda Dubroff contends that both the insurance benefits and any other money her husband gave Hathaway were "gifts," not child support, that his wife didn't authorize.

Although Hathaway and Dubroff lived together for several years, they never married. Court papers call her his "ex-wife (common law)."

Hathaway maintains that both the insurance money and Lloyd Dubroff's earlier payments to her were child support. She countered Melinda Dubroff's lawsuit in November with a $1.5 million child-support claim against Dubroff's estate, which listed only $20,000 in personal property. Hathaway has offered to withdraw her claim if Melinda Dubroff drops her community-property action, an offer Hurst has rejected.

Hathaway accuses Hurst of conflict of interest, favoring his daughter and granddaughter over the rights of Hathaway's children by Dubroff.

But an independent legal expert said there's no clear evidence that Hurst has acted improperly. Hurst has an impartial duty to all Dubroff's heirs, including his children by Hathaway, said Arthur Bredenbeck, past chairman of the California State Bar Association's probate and estate planning section. But he said Hurst has no obligations to Hathaway because Dubroff left no will.

Hathaway said she doesn't understand why she and Melinda Dubroff can't simply divide the millions between their families, as Lloyd Dubroff had wanted.

"Lloyd's intention was to support us all. His children mattered to him," Hathaway said.