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The case of Hopper v. Hopper is particularly striking because it's the sick partner who wants out. Usually it's the other way around. Cordell, most of whose clients are men, had a wealthy client who had gotten an ALS diagnosis. "He began to try some pretty exotic therapies that were not covered by insurance, and his wife became increasingly concerned about the cost," he says. She filed for divorce and for a court order that restricted his access to their assets. "He didn't spend his last days well," says Cordell.
Men appear to do more of this kind of abandonment than women. Although most studies have shown that couples facing cancer have about the same overall chance of divorcing as healthy couples, women with brain tumors or multiple sclerosis are six times more likely to be left by their spouses than men with the same condition are, according to a 2009 report in the journal Cancer. In a larger Norwegian study from 2007, 1.6% of male cancer patients got divorced, while nearly 3% of females did.
Occasionally there's a noble reason for a deathbed divorce: to settle who will look after the kids if the surviving spouse is addicted to drugs or otherwise incapable of raising children. Other than that, according to Chicago family-law attorney Jennifer Smetters, divorcing while dying is a horrible idea. "It creates more grief and stress for the minor child," she says. Plus, the length, intensity and unpredictability of divorce proceedings make them ill-suited to those who are ill.
But there are instances when it works out. In 1983, Florida teen Kenny diRobertis, who was suffering from a rare head cancer and had been given days to live, was granted a fast-track divorce so what little money he had would go to his mother and not his 27-year-old estranged wife. He lived another five years. Perhaps Dennis Hopper's not so crazy after all.