MAORI ESTATE

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20839, 22 September 1937, Page 11

MAORI ESTATE

FURTHER LITIGATION By Telegraph—Press Association AUCKLAND, September 21. Further litigation arising out of deeds of settlement and a will made by Rang! Kerehoma, a Hawke's Bay Maori more than 20 years ago, was begun before Mr Justice Callan in the Supreme Court. The whole of the estate involved, consisting of property in Hawke’s Bay, is now valued at considerably over £lOO,OOO. By a decision of his Honour in August of last year, Miss Heremoana Minnie Kerehoma, then aged 19, only child of the estator Rang! Kerehoma, was held to be absolutely entitled to the funds of the settled estate which, on December 30, 1934, showed a net balance of £95,582. Proceedings to-day took the form of an originating summons for an order interpreting the terms of the will and two deeds of settlement. The testatordied in the epidemic in 1918. The plaintiffs, Algernon Justone Rainbow, of Hastings, David FitWlis Scannell, of Hastings, Ngahina Tunhu Gillies, of Waimarama, John Robert Tipping, of Wellington, and Patrick Alexander Tipping were represented by Mr A. H. Johnstone, K.C., and Mr Bate, cf Hastings. They took action against five defendants or groups ->f defendants, the Public Trustee, Penerope Rangipuataata and others, Tarcho Kerehoma and others, the New Zealand Insurance Company and Mrs Raukura, Jury and General Finance, Ltd., and the Dominion Life Assura”"3 Office of New Zealand.

Mr Johnstone said that the questions arising were' mainly of accounts because the funds comprised in the settlement of August, 1916, had been blended by the trustees with the funds in the first settlement of 1909, and also with the estate disposed of by the will of Kerehoma. His Honour had ordered in the previous proceedings that accounts should be taken for the purpose of showing the financial position as if no blending had taken place, and the funds had always been administered separately. Accounts were taken and approved, but leave was reserved to all parties to question the incidence of the liabilities involved.

Mr Johnstone had not completed his argument when the Court adjourned.