Legal Position.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20342, 27 June 1934, Page 6

Legal Position.

Lakey’s Property

Unique Procedure in Supreme Court.

Per Press Association. AUCKLAND, June 27. PROCEDURE designed for the purpose of collecting the goods of a deceased person and disposing of them to the best advantage of his estate was invoked in the Supreme Court yesterday, when, on the motion of Mr Munro. letters of administration ad bona colligenda were granted by Mr Justice Herdman in the estate of Samuel Pender Lakey, a victim in the Ruawaro murders. Mr Oliphant. an Auckland solicitor, will receive the letters and administer the estate. Mr Olipliant, who is acting for the relatives of Lakey and Christobel Lr.key in England, can immediately take any necessary steps for the disposal of Lakey’s farm and stock at Ruawaro. Constables have been stationed at the property ever since the principal group of investigators left the district earlv last December; and a nearby settler. Mr L. Stent, has t?ee.i engaged to milk the cows. The action brought yesterday represents a most unusual procedure and, from all aspects of the case, it is believed to be unique in New Zealand. The procedure empowers a person to deal with an estate in a case of urgency. Who Died First? The position was especially complicated inasmuch as the death of Lakey had to be proved, while there was a further question as to whether Mrs Lakey predeceased her husband. Mrs Lakey was some four years older than her husband and, because of that, it was presumed, as a result of a statutory amendment in the Property Law Amendment Act, 1928, she had died first. Where two persons die in circumstances as a result of w’hich there is no evidence as to which one died first, it is presumed that the older person predeceased the younger. An affidavit was obtained from the Deputy-Registrar of the Supreme Court that there was no evidence on the point as to which of the Lakeys had died first; and the affidavit also referred to the fact of murder against the person accused. William Bayly. Evidence was by this means provided of the death of Samuel Lakey. English Common Law. The law invoked in the legal argument presented was very old and the procedure, which is part of English common law, is supposed to have been in existence for several centuries. The Court has powvr under the English Act of 1857 to grant letters of administration to anv person, passing over next of kin, if there aie special circumstances. Perusal of one of the affidavits in the present case shows that the next of kin are in England and that they have appointed Mr Oliphant as their attorney. The procedure employed in this case was in the nature of a preliminary application, very rarely employed, for the purpose of dealing with an estate pending the final grant of letters of administration. The grant made by the judge empowers the administrator ad bona colligenda to sell the estate and effects of Lakey an i to hold the proceeds subject to the direction of the Court and subject to the making of a final grant. What the immediate outcome will be has yet to be decided.