PARAMOUNT CLAIM

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 81, 5 April 1930, Page 31

PARAMOUNT CLAIM

PROVISION FOR WIDOW

The paramount claim of the widow to provision under her .husband's will was stressed in a reserved judgment delivered by tho Court of Apical"yesterday afternoon in the appeal brought by.lsabell Sheppard Poison, of Wollmg-to-n, from an order inadc by Mr. Justice MacGregor. Under the will the appellant received a one-fifth share in the.proceeds ot the salo.'pf the testator's assets, three of the shares going to the latter's mother, father, and sister, and the other to charity. - Mr. Justice MacGregor ordered that ,she should .receive in addition, as long as'she remained ■unmarried, the annual income from the share given to cliarity. ' . ' "After a careful consideration of all the facts of the case, we agree with Mr. Justice MacGregor that, having regard to all the circumstances, the testator did not make adequate provision in his will, for the-proper maintenance and support'-df'-the widow,",said the judgment, "and we think that the further provision made by,the order appealed from is hardlyl sufficient in the circumstances. In any event, as has been held in several of tho- cases decided under the Family ' Protection Act, the widow has a paramount claim. It was, no doubt, quite proper that tho testator should also consider his mothei-j his father, and his sister. It is also very proper .that a person should, if he is able to. do "so, leave portion of his estate to charity, but before he docs that he must see that his wife and children, where there are children, have adequate provision i'or their proper* maintenance and support." The Court varied the order appealed from by making a further provision which'would have the effect of postponing the gift to charity. , It was ordered that during the widow's life, as long as she remain unmarried, thero should be paid to her while the Cambridgo terrace properly belonging to the estato remained unsold the sum of £60 per annum, -which would have been pyablc to charity. Jn the event of the property being sold, tho proportion to which the institutions mentioned in the will would be entitled was to be invested and the income- not exceeding £60 per annum paid to the appellant during- her lifetime and as long as she remained unmarried.

Mr. B.- P. Hay appeared for the appellant,. Mr. T. C. A. Tlislop for tlie oilier beneficiaries, and Mr. O. Taylor for the Attorney-General.