SUPREME COURT Widow’s £2700 Estate Reapportioned

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31211, 8 November 1966, Page 14

SUPREME COURT Widow’s £2700 Estate Reapportioned

The £2700 estate of a woman in her nineties, who had left the bulk of it to friends and charities, and only a tenth share to her sole surviving child—a daughter of 72, said to be “living in poverty"—was reapportioned by Mr Justice Wilson in the Supreme Court yesterday. In an order under the Family Protection Act. his Honour varied the will of Rose Ann Elizabeth Whitehead, a widow, to reduce nine legacies to friends, other relatives, and charities from £270 to £lOO each, and award the rest of the estate to her widowed daughter, Evelyn lon May Smeaton (Mr L, M. O’Reilly) in a lump sum. Mrs Whitehead’s will, said his Honour, showed a breach of moral duty to her daughter, who was of small means, now in poor health, and in danger of going blind.

To have left only a tenth interest to Mrs Smeaton was palpably inadequate, he said. The four charities benefiting under Mrs Whitehead’s will —made after she had entered the Jubilee Home, said Mr O'Reilly—are the North Canterbury centre of the Red Cross Society, the Nurse Maude District Nursing Association, the Social Service Council of the Diocese of Christchurch, and C.0.R.5.0.

They were represented by Mr R. E. Wylie, and the Public Trustee, as executor of Mrs Whitehead’s will, by Mr B. J.

Drake Mr P. G. Hill represented other beneficiaries. Mr O’Reilly, in seeking a variation of the will on Mrs Smeaton’s behalf, asked his Honour to consider the moral and ethical aspects of the situation, as well as the practical matter of Mrs Smeaton’s maintenance.

She had been a dutiful daughter and was now in need, whereas most of the beneficiaries were strangers.

Originally, she had been the sole beneficiary under her mother’s will, but a new will had been made after Mrs Whitehead entered the Jubilee Home when her daughter, because of her own poor health, had been unable to care for her.

Other counsel did not oppose a variation of the will in Mrs Smeaton’s favour, and made submissions on quantum only. His Honour, in his decision, said that the other nine beneficiaries in the will deserved recognition by Mrs Whitehead, but only after she had carried out her duty of providing for her daughter. His Honour varied the will accordingly, and awarded the costs of all parties from the estate.

Admission As Barristers

In what was probably the last ceremony of its kind in Christchurch, Messrs G. P. Rooney and R. T. Brown were yesterday admitted by Mr Justice Wilson as barristers of the Supreme Court. Next year, a new procedure will be introduced, whereby a special day will be set aside for the admission of candidates to the bar, and a considerable function arranged. Mr Rooney was yesterday admitted as a barrister on the motion of Mr M. D. Hodgins, and Mr Brown on the motion of Mr K. W. Thwaites. In welcoming them to the profession of law, after they had taken the necessary oaths, his Honour said that the system of legal aid in civil cases, also to be introduced next year, demanded adequate reinforcement of the bar.