WIDOW MAY MARRY.

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 169, 17 July 1919, Page 7

WIDOW MAY MARRY.

WILL DECLARED VOID. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, Wednesday. Judgment was delivered to-day by Mr Justice Chapman in the case Evelyn May McLaren versus Hugh Stanley McLaren and Robert McKenzie, an application for the cancellation of probate granted in December of the will of Neil McLaren, testator, who died of influenza at Martinborough on November 25, and left an estate of between £50,000 and £60,000, with an income of over £5000. The whole income was left to the widow subject to her not remarrying. She is 29 years of age, and has one young child. The widow objected to the non-mar-riage condition, and would prefer to take her share of the estate without the condition rather than the whole income with it.

After discussing the details of the male-1 ing of the will, his Honor said: "It seems to be perfectly obvions that this is a will which the testator, in what might be culled an ordinary business mood, would never have made. Indeed, 1 can go further and say it is a will which no prudent man, possessed of a very large estate and a family constituted as his was, would deliberately have made, it must be admitted that a death-bed will containing trusts may often be crudely prepared and yet may be fully adopted by the testator, but to my mind this will could not have really reached the mind of the testator without raising further questions. Ability to deal with these matters was not to be expected of a man whom the nurse described as dazed when not actually delirious. In the circumstances I hold that it is not proved that the testator was of testamentary capacity when the will was signed, and order that pTobate be cancelled and the will declared void."