Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Louisiana

It depends on a number of things. First and foremost it depends on the settlement documents. Many settlements guarantee monthly payments for so many years and then keep paying as long as the recipient is still alive, but stop at the death of the recipient. If your dad died before the guaranteed payments were still owed, then it depends on who he named in the paperwork as his beneficiary. If he named no certain persons, then it goes into his estate. If he had a will, then that determines who gets it. If the payments had no named beneficiaries, and he had no will, then his natural children and adopted children would share the payments. If any of the payments are considered to be community property, then the wife would get her share.