Grimes, deceased. Gore-Grimes and Walsh v Grimes and Rochford

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judgment Date: 01 January 1938
• Date: 01 January 1938
• Court: High Court (Irish Free State)

In re Grimes, Deceased, Grimes v. Grimes

ELIZABETH GRIMES, Deceased, CHRISTOPHER M. GORE GRIMES, And MICHAEL WALSH

Plaintiffs

and

MOIRA GRIMES and MICHAEL ROCHFORD

Defendants.

Advancement - Parent and child - Purchase of miscellaneous securities in joint names of widowed mother and son - Whether the doctrine of advancement applicable - Presumption of a resulting trust.

Application by the plaintiffs, the executors of the will and codicil, made in 1913, of Elizabeth Grimes, who died on the 11th of July, 1930, that the ruling of the Examiner herein should be reversed and that the claim of the plaintiffs that certain securities purchased in the joint names of the said Elizabeth Grimes and her son, Patrick, who died in March, 1934, formed part of the assets of the estate of the said Elizabeth Grimes should be allowed.

The facts have been summarised in the headnote and appear sufficiently for the purposes of this report in the judgment of Johnston J. post.

C. G, who died in 1912, by his will, having provided for his children by his first wife and for his son, P. G., by his second wife, left certain property to his second wife, who survived him for many years.

P. G. by the terms of his father's will received £100 per annum during his minority for his maintenance and education, and after attaining age in 1912 became absolutely entitled to certain property yielding between £50 and £100 per annum. Having qualified as a solicitor he became a partner in a Dublin firm of solicitors in 1918. P. G. continued to reside with his mother until her death in 1930. He married in 1933 and died in 1934. By his will he left all his property to his wife.

His mother between the years 1913 and 1930 invested considerable sums of money in various securities; some of which she purchased in her own name, and others in the joint names of herself and P. G.

Held that the presumption of advancement applied to the securities purchased in the joint names, and that P. G.'s widow was therefore entitled to the securities.

Sayre v. Hughes, L. R. 5 Eq. 376, applied. Bennet v. Bennet, 10 Ch. D. 474, considered.

Held further that, even if the presumption of advancement did not apply, yet, on the evidence, the intention of P. G.'s mother to benefit her son was sufficiently strong to rebut any presumption of a resulting trust.

Cur. adv. vult.

Johnston J. :—

This case raises a nice point upon which conflicting views have been expressed by great equity Judges in England. I am not aware that the matter has ever come before the Irish Courts.

The question upon which I am called upon to decide is whether a purchase of a miscellaneous block of securities —ordinary shares, preference shares and debentures issued by a number of trading concerns—by a widowed mother in the joint names of herself and her son (who was her only child) is sufficient to raise the doctrine of advancement in the same way as would the purchase of such securities by a father in the names of himself and a son.

It appears that a Mr. Christopher Grimes, who was engaged during his lifetime in a number of profitable undertakings, died in the year 1904, leaving a considerable amount of property behind him. He had been married twice, first to a Miss Hickey, by whom he had a number of children, and secondly to a Miss Rochford, by whom he had one son, Patrick by name. He made a will disposing of his property, by which he made a certain provision for the members of his first marriage, for his widow and for his son Patrick. The widow, Mrs. Elizabeth Grimes, seems to have been provided for in a generous way, and she lived during her widowhood in comfortable circumstances and her son Patrick resided with her until her death in 1930. He was born in 1891 and came of age on January 4th 1912. His father by his will had provided a sum of £100 yearly for his education, and had left him a certain amount of property which was worth anything from £50 to £100 yearly. He received an excellent secondary education at Castleknock College, and he entered the office of his half-brother, Mr. Christopher Gore-Grimes, who has an established and well-known business as a solicitor, as an apprentice, when he was about eighteen years of age. Subsequently he became an assistant solicitor in his half-brother's office, and in 1918 he became a partner. His widowed mother seems to have had a considerable amount of ready cash with which to amuse herself, and during the years from, I think, 1913 until nearly...