REDUCED STATUS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 85, 11 April 1945, Page 3

REDUCED STATUS

UNDER SECOND WILL WIDOW'S CLAIM REFUSED Maintaining that her income had been substantially reduced by a change in her husband's will in 1943 which provided her with an annuity of £500 a year, Mrs. Arline Thackeray Louisson, widow of Neil Melville Louisson, made application for provision fixing this sum as the irreducible minimum, in a motion heard under the Family Protection Act before Mr. Justice Callan in the Supreme Court yesterday. She also applied for a capital payment of £1000 and for confirmation by the Court of her ownership of certain furniture and a motor car. Mr. Louisson was a merchant who joined the armed forces and became a captain in the Second N.Z.E.F. After some years' service he returned home in August, 1943, and met his death at the Huka Falls in November of that year. Death duties on his estate were estimated at £5186, and the net estate was valued at £11,163, the annual income being about £600. Mr. Fortune represented the widow in the application and Mr. H. P. Richmond appeared for the defendant, Mrs. Joan Melville Bull, a sister of testator, and also his trustee and residuary legatee. Mr. Fortune said his client was engaged to be married, but the date of the marriage was much in the future. This did not affect her present, rights, but she would lose every benefit under the will on remarriage. She and testator were married in March, 1939, when testator's income was about £1600 a year, and he spent lavishly on his young wife, then 21 years of age, being 10 years his junior. He went on service after six months of married life, and gave his wife a power of attorney and authority to draw on his money up to £14 a week. Three months after his return he revoked a will made previously in which she was sole beneficiary, and made a will giving his sister a power of attorney and providing for an annual annuity of £500 a year for his wife. If the income were less than £500 she was to have the whole of it. Counsel said applicant had been directed to work as a land girl, and would need some capital to make a home. Guarantee of £400 a Year 'Mr. Richmond pointed out that the testator's expendible income at the time of his marriage was £1000, though his gross income was £1600. Apparently they spent that income right up to the hilt, but that was not to say the wife was entitled to live at this standard for the rest of her life. Her earnings as a land girl would be £250 a year and she was asking £500 to enable her to have £750 a year. He submitted she had not shown any injustice, as the defendant had offered her a minimum of £400 a year out of the estate. His Honor said he had not been convinced the testator had failed in his moral duty to his wife. The Court could not consider her claim to haye a capital sum placed at her disposal, and felt that she was adequately provided for by the guarantee of £400 a year. All the Court could do was to confirm her ownership of the furniture and motor car. Applicant would be allowed £15 15/ costs.