ESTATE TO FRIEND

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22346, 18 February 1936, Page 14

ESTATE TO FRIEND

MAN'S DEATH IN FIRE AWARD MADE TO WIDOW A sum of £IOO from her deceased husband's estate was awarded to Charlotte Elliott Black, of Dunedin, in a judgment of Mr. Justice Callan delivered in the Supremo Court yesterday. The testator, Robert Hamilton Black, late of Ruakaka, North Auckland, met his death when the house in which ho was living was burned on the night of April 15, 1934. Tho will, dated a month previously, bequeathed everything the testator had to a friend and neighbour, Andrew John Owen. The widow claimed the whole estate, valued at about £3OO.

Under the will, Owen was appointed solo executor, and the following clause was included:—"l hereby inform my said executor that upon my death he will find among my effects a letter containing certain directions, which I trust to his honour as a gentleman faithfully to carry out." That letter has liovcr been found, and it is presumed that it was destroyed in the fire.

In giving judgment His Honor said the parties were marriod in 1928, and, after two months, they separated. The husband did not thereafter maintain his wife, and such efforts as she made to compel him to do so were jiot pursued with any vigour. "I am not disposed," said His Honor, "to accept the view put forward in the applicant's affidavit that the separation was caused solely by intemperato habits of the husband and his cruelty to her. Neither am I satisfied that the sole cause of the separation was the discontent of the applicant with tho life on tho farm. It is, I think, probable that both tho spouses speedily realised that this late matrimonial adventure was a mistake, and did not contribute to the happiness of either, and that thoy both desired to terminate it and that neither really ever desired or intended to renew it. "Under all tho circumstances, had the husband left her a sum of £IOO, he would in my opinion havo discharged his moral duty. Tho order of the Court is that out of the estate of the testator there be awarded to tho widow a lump sum of £100."