Two sisters, who were cut out of their father’s will on his deathbed, have launched a legal fight\u00a0for his \u00a34million estate – claiming he was mentally unbalanced by surviving the Hillsborough\u00a0disaster.<\/p>\n
Thomas Fitzgerald was hours from death and speaking through an oxygen mask when he\u00a0disinherited his daughters in 2012.\u00a0The daughters did not need his money, he said, and instead bequeathed his fortune to his new\u00a0partner and his sisters.<\/p>\n
At the High Court the daughters and their mother claimed his experiences at Hillsborough\u00a0and other traumatic life events left him so emotionally damaged he was mentally unfit to\u00a0make a will.<\/p>\n
The daughters and their mother challenged the will at the High Court in 2014, but the Judge\u00a0ruled that Mr Fitzgerald knew his own mind.<\/p>\n
The Judge rejected claims that he lacked the mental capacity to make a valid will or did not\u00a0\u2018know of and approve\u2019 of its contents and therefore dismissed the case.<\/p>\n
But his daughters and their mother, who Mr Fitzgerald was divorcing at the time of his death,\u00a0are now fighting in the Court of Appeal battle for a share of the Estate on the basis that the\u00a0deceased did not understand the impact of his will and therefore should be overturned.<\/p>\n
The daughters and their mother are arguing that the reason given in the will for leaving out\u00a0the daughters – that they were not dependents – was wrong. They allege that they had\u00a0\u2018emotional dependence\u2019 on their father.<\/p>\n
Will disputes can be very complex and require expert legal guidance to resolve matters as\u00a0fairly as possible.<\/p>\n
At Wrigley Claydon, we fight on your behalf to make this difficult time a little easier,\u00a0whether you are bringing a claim or you are on the receiving end. We are experienced in this\u00a0field and have won complex cases for our clients.<\/p>\n
As it is an emotional time we deal with our cases sensitively ensuring that all of our clients\u00a0are happy with each stage of the process and the outcome of proceedings.<\/p>\n
Two sisters, who were cut out of their father’s will on his deathbed, have launched a legal fight\u00a0for his \u00a34million estate – claiming he was mentally unbalanced by surviving the Hillsborough\u00a0disaster. Thomas Fitzgerald was hours from death and speaking through an oxygen mask when he\u00a0disinherited his daughters in 2012.\u00a0The daughters did not need his money,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":7863,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[221,35,222],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-litigation-disputes","category-news","category-trusts-wills-probate","category-221","category-35","category-222","description-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrigleyclaydon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrigleyclaydon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrigleyclaydon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrigleyclaydon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrigleyclaydon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrigleyclaydon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7859\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrigleyclaydon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrigleyclaydon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrigleyclaydon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrigleyclaydon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}