WIDOW'S CLAIM.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 299, 18 December 1935, Page 16

WIDOW'S CLAIM.

PARTIES SEPARATED. EXCLUSION FROM WILL. COURT RESERVES DECISION. An indication that he thought the allowance out of the estate of the late John David Jones to his widow should be something between £10 and £5 a week was given by Mr. Justice Callan in the Supreme Court when further legal argument was heard this morning in the action brought by Evelyn Jones against the trustees of the estate of John David Jones, seeking an order for maintenance at £10 a week. The hearing commenced on Monday, Mr. Terry appearing for tho applicant, one or other of the various interested parties being represented by either Mr. Richmond, Mr. Barrowclough, Mr. Coldstine or Mr. L. Marchaud. To-day Mr. Barrowclough submitted that whatever order the Court made the amount should be considerably lefts than £10 a week. "The applicant married tho testator when ho was an elderly man," said Mr. Barrowclough. "He was a wealthy man, and she penniless. They were married in 1023 and separated in 1920. Whether she married him for affection or any other reason, the affection did not bear with liim very long.

His Honor: I am not njuch interested as to who is at fault. ~

Replying to Air. Barrowclough, his Honor said, "What you ask me to do is give her a little less because she lived with him only a short time and then left him."

Mr. Barrowclough: Your , T;r onor has suggested the allowance should be somewhere between £5 and .€lO. The income he was living upon before his death was the income on an-estate of £40,000. Now the income is on the basis of .an estate of £10,000. and I am instructed the estate is worth a great deal less than £10.000.

Mr. Barrowclough suggested that sufficient should be set aside to provide an annuity of £5 a week to plaintiff till she reached the age of 94 years. If this were done it would enable t:ie estate to be woijnd up. If the maintenance order, whatever the amount might be, had to be paid out of the residue of the estate, it would mean that some of the beneficiaries would receive no benefit at all.

His Honor reserved his decision.