Before: Arbitrator EvaStöwe (A), Respondent: CAcert (R), Claimant: Support (represented by Marcus M) (C), Case: a20140118.1

History Log

Original Dispute, Discovery (Private Part) (optional)

EOT Private Part

original Dispute

Dear arbitrators,

Supports needs a precedent case how to handle tickets where it is that
that the owner of an account is deceased.

My suggestion for the process:

Supports blocks the account immediately so nothing can be done with the
account anymore.

Support hands over the delete handling to arbitration

Discovery

There is one case (a20140123.2) about the death of a member running, that is handled by the arbitrator of this case.

Since the support asked for a precedents case and we do not have much expirience in this regard, the mentioned case will be monitored to get a better idea of what is needed in such cases. Since a decision in this case is not urgent, it will be handled somewhat "behind" the other case, so that the experiences from that case can be used here.

Considerations regarding CCA

One question is how to treat the community membership and the continuation of the risks, liabilities and obligations (RLO) from the CCA.

Currently CCA does not provide anything for people dying. However that regrettably does not stop people doing so.

As the community membership should be personal, because the certificates are personal, it probably should not be inherited after the death but terminated. Currently the CAcert Community Agreement(CCA) only knows a termination by an arbitrator. It is not clear who will be the bearer of the RLO until an arbitrator rules in such a case, since the original member cannot realize them anymore.

As long as there is no clear arrangement, this gets even more complicated as the member who agrees to the CCA will not be able to know what will happen in the case of his death. In normal arbitration cases, a member can be informed and involved at every moment, which should be enough. This is a little bit more complicated for cases where the member has passed away. One especially cannot get an agreement from them to whom their RLO and rights concerning CAcert should be subrogated to.

So even if this case eventually provides a precedents ruling for the handling of cases with deceased persons, this may not be enough as long as people do not know about this and so do not agree to this when they accept the CCA.

There exists an arbitration case a20110310.1 where a ruling elaborates on the treatment of the death of a member. The according ruling contains the following action: 

Therefore I place an action on Policy Group to update the CCA and related documents to cater for the death of a community member.

The above ruling was issued about a year ago. There was no activity in this regard at all within Policy Group since then.

As found in a20110310.1 and the current case, an arrangement within the CCA is needed. (Especially since there are currently two known cases, that involve deceased members.)

According to Dispute Resolution Policy (DRP) 3.6 Remedies: 

The Arbitrator generally instructs using internal remedies, that is ones that are within the general domain of CAcert the Community, but there are some external remedies at his disposal. He may rule and instruct any of the parties on these issues.

   [other remedies]
    Changes to policies and procedures.

So if there is no progress on the side of Policy Group (or afterwards board who also has a word in the change of policies), an arbitrator could rule to change the CCA as needed.

However, this option should been used as a last resort and the normal authorities should get another chance to define the consequences of the death of a community member.

Intermediate Ruling

Policy Group should provide an update to the CAcert Community Agreement (CCA) so that it caters for the death of a community member. This should be done without delay.

As there already was a comparable ruling of a case, already closed (a20110310.1) which was not executed within nearly a year, the arbitrator of a20140118.1 should monitor the process closely. If there cannot be seen any real progress within policy group to define the needed update, after a reasonable time (about two or three months), the arbitrator should consider to define it by another ruling according to DRP 3.6, so that there is an arrangement present until policy group comes to a decision. Such a ruling should take into account any previous discussion within policy group for this matter.

-- Cologne, 2014-02-20

Update: CCA was changed accordingly at 2014-10-15

Policy Group changed CCA so that the membership is terminated by the death of a member.

Discovery II

Summary about events

The case was entered by support because support saw the need to get a precedents case how to handle tickets of a deceased person.

Within CAcert there is little experience with such cases. Which in general is a good thing. But with only little experience it is hard to fix proceedings into a precedents case.

The case is open for some while, without showing a lot of progress. However there were three cases about deceased persons which the Arbitrator and the Case Manager were able to treat and close.

This gives at least some experience to be able to consider a first approach to a process defined for such cases in a precedents case.

Based on this experience the below process/ruling was presented to support for discussion.

Support disagreed at some points (see below). Some of those points were discussed with the internal auditor, who did not agree with the reasoning of support.

General idea of the ruling

As we do not have a lot of experience about this kind of cases the first precedents case should only cover the first steps. We do not consider this case as the last one for such cases but only as a first step to cautious approach the final process. To be able to improve the process in the future, Arbitration needs to keep in contact with those cases and the related persons relatively early. Because of this the communication with the parties should mostly happen at Arbitration level for the time being, until there is more experience.

Cases about a deceased person have the double difficulty because the (former) member probably cannot be addressed, any more while one has to make some ethical considerations about how to address other parties with something comparably trivial as a CAcert membership compared to the death of a loved person.

On the other hand, if we would directly close on some unspecific notion that someone is dead, without even contacting the primary email address, this could lead to a possible attack on our members, by people who just claim someone is dead to harm that person or to gain access to their domains.

This is also sensible, as a possible decision about the results of such a case has to be done by Arbitration on a case to case basis at the moment.

On the other hand Arbitration is relatively slow to react while Support is fast in comparision. So the first steps should be handled by Support.

Arbitration should be advised to find more process elements that can be fixed in a precedents case in the future.

Process description

There are three possible events to trigger Support activity:

Event A and B can occur together.

Each such event should trigger a fixed Support reaction. Only those described activities should be done by Support regarding cases of deceased persons, everything else that is needed to handle those cases should be left to Arbitration. If Support is also addressed with some other issue that can be handled by Support, this should be split of that case and handled separately.

Reaction to Event A (Person X reports the death of member Y)

Reaction to Event B (Some evidence about the death of member Y is provided)

Reaction to Event C (Y reports to be living from one of Ys addresses)

Support action without Event A-C

Support may consider to remind Arbitration about the case, if they see an urgency that is not met by Arbitration and may suggest according actions.

Remarks

a) "Evidence"

At least the following things should be regarded as evidence about the death, but other things may also be considered as it may be quite different what parts of evidence someone can give in such a situation:

b) The reason for the block

The reasoning behind the block is that if the report is true, other persons may have got hold to the access data for the account in a legal and correct manner. (Relatives, someone handling the estate, successor in the job, ...). However nobody may access the account as the owner anymore. The block is meant to prevent such an access.

But a block should only be done if there is at least some evidence other than someone (maybe even a non-member) just stating something.

The block is not meant to gain the attention of Y. As at this time, the assumtion is that Y is deceased. The prior mails are aimed to alert the attention of Y if he lives. They are more likely to be successfull, as a lot of our members probably only check the account once within 6 months, if at all.

Maybe in a later iteration of this kind of precedents cases this will be adjusted in one way or another.

iCM action?

An adjustment may be that if the iCM also sees a need for a fast reaction based on a the information provided by Support and also finds it to be unlikely to find an Arbitrator and CM to pick up the case correctly, than the iCM may be authorized to order a block or removal of a block or comparable activities. They need to be documented in the case file (at least in the private part).

Discussion of alternative suggestion from Support

The alternative process/process elements suggested by support and the discussion about this can be found at:

Discussion of support idea

Rulings

Intermediate Ruling

Policy Group should provide an update to the CAcert Community Agreement (CCA) so that it caters for the death of a community member. This should be done without delay.

As there already was a comparable ruling of a case, already closed (a20110310.1) which was not executed within nearly a year, the arbitrator of a20140118.1 should monitor the process closely. If there cannot be seen any real progress within policy group to define the needed update, after a reasonable time (about two or three months), the arbitrator should consider to define it by another ruling according to DRP 3.6, so that there is an arrangement present until policy group comes to a decision. Such a ruling should take into account any previous discussion within policy group for this matter.

-- Cologne, 2014-02-20

Final Ruling

Cases where the death of a member is reported, should be handled by Support with the above process.

The process may be adjusted by further rulings.

Eva Stöwe - 2016-06-19

Execution

Similiar Cases

a20140123.2

How to report the Death of an Assurer

a20131204.1

Member passed away

a20110310.1

Appeal on case a20100212.2

a20100212.2

Account removal, member is deceased

a20141022.1

Close account of deceased member

Arbitrations/a20140118.1 (last edited 2016-06-22 21:29:57 by EvaStöwe)