INVOLVED ESTATE

Evening Post, Issue 52, 2 March 1935, Page 10

INVOLVED ESTATE

CLAIM TO SHARE

UPHELD BY COURT

(By relesrapli— Cress Association.)

TIMARU, This Day.

Judgment declaring that Isabelle Ellis Pattison, of Auckland, spinster, was entitled to a one-third share in a trust fund now valued at £19,227, established by the late Captain Henry Cain, formerly of Timaru, on February 26, 1870, was given by Mr. Justice Johnston in the Supreme Court.

Miss Pattison based her claim to participate in the trust fund on the ground that she is the daughter of Jane Ellis Espie, a step-daughter of Captain Cain. The mother of the plaintiff contended that on the death of her first husband, William Johnson Newton, she married Jonathan Melvin Pattison, who, the plaintiff asserted, was her father. The defence was founded on the allegation that at the time Jane Ellis Newton married Pattison, on July 5, 1886, her husband, William Newton, was still living, and that the second marriage was invalid, and that the plaintiff was so not entitled to benefit [under the deed of settlement of 1870, which related to legitimate children only.

The Judge said that he found no evidence sufficient to convince him that Newton was alive in July, 1886, and that he presumed him dead, and as it was a legitimate inference that Mrs. Newton did not intend to commit bigamy he should uphold the second marriage. The defence that the second marriage was invalid failed and the plaintiff was entitled to a third share in the settled fund of 1870.