CODICIL DESTROYED

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 688, 13 June 1929, Page 11

CODICIL DESTROYED

COURT HEARS DISPUTE VALIDITY OF BEQUEST When Mrs. Maria Louise Peterson tore up the codicil of her will a week after making it, did she intend to revoke its provisions or merely destroy it, fearing that it was not technically legal? Mr. Justice Blair had to decide this interesting issue in the Supreme Court today. Mrs. Peterson, who died at Auckland on October 25 last year, left an estate of £9,000, most of which was bequeathed to the Newmarket Evangelical Church. On September 29 the testatrix made a codicil, in which she made a gift of £ 500 to Mrs. Eline Marie Page in October, 1925. The executors of the estate, the Rev. Thos, R. Cameron, Basil C. Hercus and Alfred Edward Johnson, proceeded against John Banbury, on behalf of the Newmarket Church, and Eline Marie Page, seeking to prove that the testatrix had destroyed the codicil in the mistaken belief that the document was invalid or of no legal effect. Mr. Prendergast appeared for the executors.

Alfred Edward Jobson. accountant, declared that he had met Mrs. Petersen at her home on September 29 last year, and, at her request, drafted a codicil which she read over and signed in the presence of himself and two witnesses. The codicil had been subsequently destroyed by the testatrix, hut on the day of her death he had reconstructed a copy, which he produced in court. The codicil had been torn up by Mrs. Petersen on his advice. He had exhibited it to a legal friend, who had advised him that the document would cause legal trouble. He had advised Mrs. Petersen to call In her solicitor immediately to have a new codicil properly drafted. The first two clauses in the will provided for bequests to a niece and nephew in Denmark, but as the testatrix had been unable to communicate with them, she had made provision for £SO Oeach to Mrs. Page and Mr. Petersen. The testatrix had died before she could make a new codicil. Annie Harrison, one of the witnesses to the codicil, declared Mrs. Petersen informed her she intended making bequests to Mrs. Page and Mrs. Petersen.

“The old practice in these cases was to leave a decision on the facts to a jury, remarked his Hononr. It was clear that the tsetathix had no intention of revoking the codicil when she destroyed the document, hut she did so to have a properly drawn document made. The attitude of the Newmarket church reflected much credit on it: it was imbued with the proper Christian spirit. He made orders in favour of the will and codicil.