OLD MAN’S WILL.

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LX, Issue 10832, 2 April 1932, Page 4

OLD MAN’S WILL.

“This case is similar to one in which the Legislature thought proper to intervene to secure some measure of justice for the children of the testator,” said Mr Justice Long-Innes in the Equity Court at Syd., during an application by a man and a woman for maintenance from their father’s estate.

The father had left everything to his second wife. The plaintiffs were Marmlon Leslie Mitchell and Myrtle Paine, stepchildren of Mrs Louise Mitchell, and the application was in respect of the £2717 estate of the late Leslie Ron-' aid Mitchell, estate manager, of Summer Hill, who died last year at the age of 73. Mitchell, it was stated, had married for a second time two years ago, gnd on his death had left his estate, valued at £3717 to his widow. Both Marmion Mitchell and Myrtle Paine, according to their affidavits, were now penniless, the latter being the wife of a disabled ex-soldier and the mother of five young children. “I have a strong suspicion,” said the judge “that the deceased and the woman had been on terms of intimacy, and that his marirage to her at this late stage of his life was probably with the view to putting the position right in the eyes of the world. “At an rate, his first wife died IS months before his marriage to this old friend, who is 57. Six days afterwards he made his will and in it were peculiar features. “He provided that if his wife did not survive him by more than a month, the estate should be divided among his children. If she lived, the property was to go, lock, stock and barrel, to her. Whether he thought she’d die of grief in that time or adopt the Hindu method and follow him, I cannot say, but at least, she survived the crucial period. The children got nothing, and the widow has refused to give the children any relief.” The Judge made an order for the payment to Myrtle Paine of £sl from the estate to relieve her of pressing debts. No further order for immediate payments was made, but, after the death of the widow, the two children will receive relief from property at Summer Hill.