Wealthy widow wins negligence action over "back to front" error in will

A wealthy widow has won her negligence claim against Surrey solicitors Triggs Wilkinson Mann at the High Court.

Two former partners in the firm and its predecessor, who acted as executors, were joined in the action. Judith Wedderspoon and Timothy Caton are currently consultants at TWM solicitors, the successor to Triggs Wilkinson Mann.

Dr Alison Martin claimed to have lost thousands of pounds because her husband's will was incorrectly drafted.

Delivering judgment in Martin v Triggs Turner Bartons and others [2009] EWHC 1920 (Ch), Mr Justice Floyd said Philip Martin's latest will was executed on 23 December 1999, two weeks before he died from cancer at the age of 56.

Floyd J said the principal negligence allegation was that a power of advancement of capital to his wife was wrongly drafted.

'It is alleged in broad terms that, instead of being drafted as a maximum of around £100,000, it should have provided that the trustees could advance everything except £100,000. It was back to front.'

Philip Martin was a senior executive at Unilever and his wife an occupational physician at BP.

Floyd J said the description of Dr Martin as 'independently wealthy' was a fair one, because she was well paid and owned a property in Putney in her sole name.

Following her husband's death, she was entitled to a pension of £35,000 a year from his company and on her retirement, in seven years' time, a further pension of £28,000 from hers.

The judge said he accepted Wedderspoon's evidence that Philip Martin's principal concern, after making provision for his wife, was to create a discretionary charitable trust to help the victims of natural disasters.

However, he concluded that it was Martin's intention to extend the limit on the power of advancement to his wife to everything in the trust apart from £100,000.

'It is not surprising that, at the end of a long and tiring meeting, Mr Martin did not pick up the error in the will,' Floyd J said.

'He was, at the time, on significant doses of diamorphine, and he would have been making, the evidence establishes, huge efforts to keep up in the earlier stages.'

Mr Justice Floyd said that Dr Martin subsequently lost her claim to a state widow's pension after Wedderspoon said she believed she was not entitled to it. Wedderspoon later wrote to the DSS, at Dr Martin's request, but failed to follow up the letter.

As a result, the court heard, Dr Martin lost pension payments amounting to just over £25,000.

Floyd J concluded that Dr Martin's pre-death claim succeeded, as did her post-death claims relating to the state pension and a further claim relating to her late husband's national savings certificates.

Mark Keenan, partner at Mishcon de Reya, acted for Dr Martin. 'Dr Martin is very pleased at the outcome,' he said. 'Naturally this has been a difficult time for her and she is relieved it is at an end.'

Patrick Stewart, managing principal of TWM solicitors, said he was disappointed by the outcome of the case and is considering options regarding an appeal.