“AN UNJUST WILL.”

Shannon News, 6 November 1923, Page 3

“AN UNJUST WILL.”

BEQUEATHS MORE MONEY THAN

HE POSSESSED.

“This testator lias caused to his executor and his family a great deal of trouble and anxiety really through bequeathing more than he possessed/’ declared Sir Frederick Chapman when delivering a judgment in the supreme Court on Saturday in connection with a Foxton estate. “He treated his sons in. a niggardly way despite the fact that he gave two of thent ; ,a medical education and annuities, hut he has given so generously to charities connected with his church ■* that his estate jdoes not ' contain money enough to make good his gifts,”

The case was that of John Joseph Kane Hennessy and. .Catherine Henorah 'Hennessy against the Public Trustee, a motion that came before His Honour in March. “I have come to the conclusion that a' reasonable measure by way of rectifying or partially rectifying the injustice done by the testator (an injustice which in the (case of the eldest son he recognised when he made an attempt to rectify ip by an invalid will) and at the same time by making a provision for their maintenance, which the testator ought- to have made, is to' order the following sums to be allowed out of the estate: To John Joseph Kane ; Hennessy, * £1200; to William Hennessy, £400; to James Hennessy, £800,” continued, * his Honour. “He ordered that 4hese spins should be paid in three equal instalments, the first being paid as' soon as is found convenient, and the others, if feasible, at intervals of six months.” His Honour went on to say: “The testator endeavoured to make good the defect in the provision for his eldest son), J. J. Hennessy. This he did by purporting to give him £ISOO by means of an inoperative instrument, I cannot accept this as decisive of the amount that I ought to allow as it'was probably, like the will itself, made under the belief that his estate would .yield all that the imposed on.it, in which he Was mjsr- taken.- Rj, howfever, represents his ideal of what is just. Even: with these allowances, he considered that the will remained an unjust one, and said it was beyond • his power to rectify injustice beyond what -the court was, following the terms •of the statute,, authorised to do.