INTESTATE ESTATES.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1574, 18 October 1912, Page 8

INTESTATE ESTATES.

[Hcfore the Court of Appeal.] .THE ROLE OF THE PUBLIC TRUSTEE WHAT POWER HAS HEr What are IJi? powers of I he Public Trustee ill regard to claiming (under the Administration Act, IMS) tiie administration of intestate estates? This is the question which tho Court of Appeal was asked to decide in a test ease submitted yesterday. ]t appears tbat some Supremo Court divisions are in conflict oil the point,, and the Public Trustee is anxious to have the ruling of the Court of Appeal 011 the matter.

The Judges for the hearing are the Chief Justice (Sir Robert Stout), Mr. Justice Williams, Mr. Justice Denniston, Mr. Justice Edwards, Mr. Justice Cooper, and Mr.' Justice Chapman. Tho estate concerned in the case, before the Court is that of William James Adolphus Dickens, engine-driver, lato of Petone. Sir John Findlay, K.C., with him Mr. •T. W. .Macdonald, is appearing for the Public Trustee, while Mr. 51. Myers, with him Mr. P. E. Petherick, is appearing for Mrs. Dickens, the widow. The Law Society is represented in tho matter by Mr. A. Gray. When opening the case yosterdav, Sir John .Findlay explained that the tublic. Trustee did not come to the Court asking for something to which he was not entitled. He simply wished to bavo the Court's decision as to whether, under Section U, he had, or had not, a prior right to administration. If he had the light, he did not propose to exercise it otherwise than had been the practice in the past. The trustee was of opinion that the section, as he read it at present, imposed not only a right but a correlative duty. / Argument, which is fairly lengthy, had. not concluded when the Court adjourned until 10.30 a.m. to-day. WHEN IS A BUILDING FIXED? THE PALMERS.TON CASE? Argument was concluded yesterday morning in the Court of Appeal in the Palmersion North case, in which a decision of Mr. Justice Chapman was questioned. On the bench for the hearing of the appeal were the Chief Justice (Sir Robert Stout), Mr. Justice Denniston, Jlr. Justice Edwards, and Jlr. Justice Cooper. The parties were William Bryant Vater Pearce, farmer, of Rangiotu, appellant, nnd Hare Rakena. Te Awe Awe, male aboriginal Native, of Rangiotu, respondent. , Mi*. C. E. Baldwin, of Palinerston North, appeared for Pearc?, while Jlr. H. Clifford Moore, of Palmerston North, appeared for Hare Rakena Te Awe Awe. Details of the action in the Court below were published yesterday.- Hare Rakena Te Awe Awe_ ; had recently been awarded £220 damages against Pearce for removal of a "fixture" (dwellinghouse) from land, and the decision was appealed from for the purpose of testing the question as to whether the dwellinghouse was legally a "fixture" or not. After hearing argument, the Court reserved decision.