SENSATIONAL WILL CASE

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXI, Issue 303, 7 December 1931, Page 7

SENSATIONAL WILL CASE

CLAIMS TO FORTUNE. London, Nov. 15. Leading counsel have been briefed tn a- lawsuit in which the will of Montague Stanley Napier, at one time chairman and joint managing director of Messrs. D. Napier and Son, Ltd, motor-car and aeroplane manufacturers, is contested by his widow. Mr. Napier died at Cannes last January, leaving £1,243,000. Mrs. Napier received nothing under his will, and only comparatively small bequests were made to Mr. Napier’s children. The will directed that if the children disputed it they should forfeit their interests. Under the terms of the will Mr. Napier left £lO,OOO and a life interest in his residue estate to Mrs. Norah Mary Fryer, wife of his medical adviser. It has been estimated that Mrs. Fryer would thus benefit to the extent of £700,000. A barrister in close touch with the estate told a reporter that the lawsuit is expected to come before the courts after Christmas. “It will be one of the biggest lawsuits of the century,” he said. “Already documenta weighing more than half a ton have been collected. “Mrs. Napier is contesting the will on the ground that when her husband made it he was physically and mentally unfit, and she is propounding an earlier will of 1915 under which she benefited substantially.”