LEGACY STANDS
EFFECT OF A CODICIL
By a reserved judgment delivered today by the Chief Justice (Sir Michael Myers), C. (Chubbs) Johnson, manager for the A.M.P. Society at Auckland, is to receive £500 under the will of James Hector McKay, retired architect, of Wellington, who died at Sydney a little under a year ago. The bequest was one of a number made originally by the testator and then revoked by" him in a codicil, he being under the impression that Mr. Johnson and the other legatees had predeceased him. , , His Honour said that he considered on the whole that the words in /the codicil "who have predeceased me" might be regarded as in the nature of a recital or preamble, that they were the dominating words and expressed the reason for the revocation, and that as a matter of construction the meaning of the clause v/as that in the case' of each of the persons named therein the legacy to that person was revoked if the fact really were that such person had predeceased the testator. If that was correct, then the truth of the fact was the condition of the revocation, or, in other words, the revocation was contingent upon the fact being true. In his opinion, the codicil so far as the legacy to Mr. Johnson was concerned was inoperative and the legacy stood.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/EP19451219.2.92
Bibliographic details
Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 147, 19 December 1945, Page 8
Word Count
226LEGACY STANDS Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 147, 19 December 1945, Page 8
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