Grant After 23 Years

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31042, 23 April 1966, Page 3

Grant After 23 Years

[N.Z. Press Association) NAPIER, April 22

A Silverstream widow, Mrs Phyllis Mottram Hill, aged 65, has been granted a bigger share of the estate of her husband, Mr Dudley Bruce Hill, of Fernhill—23 years after his death.

Mr Justice Tompkins, in a Supreme Court judgment released today, found Mr Hill was in breach of his moral obligation to Mrs Hill, his second wife. Mr Hill left her a £4OO annuity for life when he died I in September, 1943, leaving

lan estate worth £19,275 net. His Honour granted an application to re-open the matter 22 years late on the ground that to do otherwise would result in a manifest injustice. His Honour made an order increasing Mrs Hill’s annuity from £4OO, to £5OO a year for life. He also made an order which would enable Mrs Hill to buy a home with an inter-est-free loan against the estate, repayable on her death or remarriage.

The judgment said Mr Hill’s will left the £4OO annuity to Mrs Hill, who had been his housekeeper-companion before becoming his wife six years before he died at the age of 73.

The will set aside a fund of £6OOO for the benefit of the children of his daughter, Mrs lole Julie Shield, and left the residue in equal shares to his son, Mr Vyvyan Dudley Hill, of Fernhill, and his daughter, Mrs Shield.

His Honour said that Mrs Hill in 1943 thought £4OO a year was adequate income and all she was entitled to, but was disappointed there was no provision for a home.

When she became ill in 1946 and found living a struggle with the annuity she wrote to the Hastings solicitor who acted for the son and daughter to ask if anything could be done. She gained the impression from the reply that it was too late to re-open the matter, and did nothing further until consulting her present solicitor in 1964.

Meanwhile, the assets against which the annuity was charged had increased in value from £8367 in 1943 to £24.500 in 1965. His Honour said it seemed Mr Hill should have either provided a home for Mrs Hill or granted a sufficiently large annuity, or perhaps capital, to enable her to rent or buy a home. He was a wealthy man living in a 20-room house with a domestic staff of three. “I do not think the evidence given by the economist deposing that the value of the pound in 1943 had by 1965 depreciated to 9s 3d was relevant to the breach of moral obligation,” said his Honour. “But I think that there was in other respects a breach of moral obligation on the part of the deceased in the provision he made for his widow.”

Mr W. S. Shires, of Wellington, appeared for Mrs Hill, Mr D. T. Scannell for residuary beneficiaries, and Mr A. D. McLeod for the trustees.