Buick v Equity Trustees Executors & Agency Co Ltd [1957] HCA 65

High Court of Australia Dixon C.J. Fullagar and Kitto JJ. Buick v Equity Trustees Executors & Agency Co Ltd [1957] HCA 65

ORDER Vary the order of the Supreme Court by omitting the answers thereby given to questions (a), (b), (c) and (d) in the originating summons and substituting therefor the following declarations: (1) that on the true construction of the testator's will each of his children, the defendants James William John Buick and Nancy Isabella Hart, is entitled to one-half of the income of the residuary estate during his or her life only, subject to the interest in income of the testator's widow, the defendant Daisy Buick; and (2) that subject to the aforesaid interests in income of the testator's widow and children, there is an intestacy as to the residuary estate of the testator. Let the costs of the appeal of all parties be taxed as between solicitor and client and paid out of the estate.

Cur. adv. vult.

The following written judgments were delivered:—

Oct. 10 Dixon C.J.

John Buick died on 23rd November 1925. He was survived by his widow, a son and a daughter, all of whom are living. The son and the daughter are married. The son has no children; the daughter has two, a girl now aged twenty and a boy now aged eighteen. Neither of these is married. The estate has been partly administered but the trustees of the will hold assets said to be worth at present £20,000 or thereabouts. John Buick's will was made shortly before his death. It is a short document the chief provision of which is a disposition of residue for the benefit of his wife and children. The disposition, even with a proviso which in the events that happened could have no operation, covers only twenty lines but it contrives to set a problem of interpretation susceptible under the rules of construction of one or other of at least six possible solutions. At all events six rival solutions were placed before us in the able arguments of counsel.