QUESTION OF LEGITIMACY

Evening Star, Issue 19064, 6 October 1925, Page 8

QUESTION OF LEGITIMACY

APPEAL COURT DECISION [Per United Press Association.] WELLINGTON, October 6. In a case brought by the Public Trustee the judgment of the Appeal Court was that the mother was entitled to obtain tho legitimation of the child at any time, oven although after tho father’s death. When tho child was legitimated it was deemed to_ bo mated from the date of its birth. The Act* was undoubtedly intended to be retrospective by tho Legislature. Therefore the female child was held entitled to share in one-third of the estate with the male child. [Tho facts were that a man died intestate in 1920, leaving an estate of £13,000. Ho married in 1866, being childless when his wife died in 1906. In January, 1913, ho became the father of an illegitimate female child, and in May, 1915, married tho mother of tho child. Three months later a second child, a male, was horn. The female was not legitimated in the lifetime of deceased, hut legitimation was registered by tho mother under the Legitimation Act in 1921, after tho death of the father. Tho Public Trustee, as administrator of the estate, was in doubt whether tho female child was entitled to participate equally with the male child.]