Native Appellate Court.

Hastings Standard, Issue 376, 19 July 1897, Page 3

Native Appellate Court.

Thursday, July 15, 1897. (Before Chief Judge Davy and Judge ticannell). FORAXGAHAU Xo. 28. Interlocutory decision on claim of Karanama Wairoa and others by adoption. The question of the Court at the present stage of the profoedings is, was there- any adoption by Ri ihana. Huripoki according to Native custom of any or either of tlie persons who now claim to occupy the position of his tumuiti irh.iiif/lnii, that is to say, Karanama Wairoa, Ratima Wairoa, and the two children of Ratima. As regards Karanama it is clear to this Court that there were not. up to the date of the making of the will in his favor in May, 1894, swdi relations between the parties as would satisfy the conditions of adoption according to Native custom. The terms of the wili, however valuable they might have been as an admission by the testator, had the question as to the previous relationship been a doubtful one, have, in the opinion of the Court, no value whatever in the present case. \Yc do not. therefore, feel called upon to decide as to the relative credibility of the witnesses who have given evidence as to the circumstances under which that will was prepared and executed. The decision of the Court is that Karanama is not entitled to be regarded as a tamo iti u'lnnu/ni of Reihana. As regards Ratima Wairoa the case is even weaker than that of Karanama, seeing that evidence of intention deducible from the will is against him. The same may be said as to the two children of Ratima. The Court therefore holds that none of the persons who have set up claims to succeed to Reihana Huripoki by virtue of adoption are entitled to sueli succession. Friday, July 16, 1897. OTUARUMIA AND OTHER BLOCKS. Judgment. The point raised bv this appeal is whether a person who has been found by the Court to be entitled to succeed as tmnaiti whir,ujni to the estate of a deceased Native is in the absence of children of the body of the deceased entitled to the whole of the estate as against all other relatives. We think this is so, and that the right by adoption having by a series of decisions been recognised by the Court, it is impossible to draw the line at any other point. The adoption, if it is anything at all. places the adopted child on the footing of a child of the deceased. In the present case it has been contended that the Court did not find adoption, and that the evidence was not sufficient to justify it in so doing. It is true that the Court did not in so many words affirm the adoption, but the appellants rested their claim in the lower Court on that ground, and the award of the Court is not explicable on any other supposition than that the Court considered the adoption as proved, nor do we see any sufficient reason to question the action of the Court in this respect. The judgment of this Court- is that the appellants are entitled to succeed to the whole interest of the deceased in the blocks specified in the appeal, or those of them in which deceased was an owner, and that the decision of the former Court be varied accordingly.