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Possibly not as sadistic as the judge handling the will: > But some mothers who had more than nine kids still weren’t allowed a shot at the prize. Pauline Clar
by tehwebguy 6y ago
Possibly not as sadistic as the judge handling the will:
> But some mothers who had more than nine kids still weren’t allowed a shot at the prize. Pauline Clarke was one of them; she had 10 children within the timeline — the first five with her former husband and the second five with a different man, one she lived with after her separation from her husband. Middleton was not impressed. “‘Children,’ when used in any testamentary document, always means legitimate children,” he wrote in his judgment. Instead of $9 million, Clarke was eventually given a settlement of just over $200,000, and that came only after a lengthy lawsuit.
- fred_is_fred 6y agoThis was 100 years ago and that was not an outside the norm view back then.
- tehwebguy 6y agoOK, procreation based multi-million dollar contest wills were extremely outside the norm ??
- fred_is_fred 6y agoThe reply was about legitimate vs illegitimate children - not the contest.
- tehwebguy 6y agoYes, in the sense of whether someone is a “legitimate child” of the deceased in a normal will (still absolutely repugnant that “illegitimate children” could be excluded by default, but not this judge’s fault). However, it seems clear the judge used that definition to change the rules of the contest, which makes no sense.
- fred_is_fred 6y agoThe point is that legally (in the eyes of the judge) these were not children of the parties - regardless of the biological situation. I assume that this was standard legal process then and was applied to inheritance and other legal matters. The judge was simply applying existing law and custom by interpreting the words of the contest. This is why you have lawyers write these, although based on what's else this guy did, causing some confusion was likely the point.