£2000 MORE OR LESS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 292, 7 December 1923, Page 8

£2000 MORE OR LESS.

A NICE POINT IN A WIIX. LITTLE GIRL'S LEGACY. "It is rather a nice question," remarked his Honor Mr. Justice Reed, at Auckland Supreme Court to-day, when he was asked to interpret a phrase in the will of the late John Gates Hyland, otherwise John Hyland, farmer, Tuakau. The plaintiffs were the executors under the will, David Thornton Hyland, farmer, Tuakau, and Allan Roy McCrae, civil servant, Otahuhu (Mr. Black), and the defendant was the guardian of Betty Bernccia Hewitt Hyland, the six-year-old granddaughter of the testator, and also his adopted daughter, who was represented by Mr. Towle. The other beneficiaries had intimated they did not desire to be represented as parties as they were prepared to accept the finding of the Court, the action being friendly.

It was explained that the will disposed of the testator's estate (valued at about £11,000) in .various legacies, and that the residue was gifted to Betty in these words, "the sum of £2000, more or less." An annuity of £3 per week was bequeathed to the widow, and Mr. Towle eaid the question was whether the residue which was to go to Betty included the money 3 set aside to provide the widow's annuity for life. On the other hand there was the point whether the widow would be entitled to claim the cash value of the annuity, a sum from the corpus of the estate, to produce £3 a week, not for life, but for ever. He thought it was conceded that the widow was not entitled to claim more than £3 a week for life, and that the sum set aside to meet that payment was covered by the bequest to the child Betty.

The total amount involved is some £4000. His Honor said he would consider the matter, and judgment was reserved.