Lam Kah Heng Jonathan and Another v Magdalene Lye Yoke Ching (as the Executor in the Estate of Lye Theresa, NRIC No S0683002A, Deceased)
| Jurisdiction | Singapore |
| Judge | Loo Ngan Chor |
| Judgment Date | 17 September 2009 |
| Neutral Citation | [2009] SGDC 336 |
| Court | District Court (Singapore) |
| Published date | 29 March 2010 |
| Citation | [2009] SGDC 336 |
| Plaintiff Counsel | Constance Paglar |
| Defendant Counsel | Gurdeep Kumar & Chia Kwok Seng |
| Year | 2009 |
| 17th September 2009 |
|
District Judge Loo Ngan Chor:
Introduction:
1. The defendant is the named executrix of the will dated 16th October 2001 (“the will”) of the deceased, Madam Lye Theresa. She had filed an application on 28th December 2007 for grant of probate of the will in OS Probate No. DCP 3257/2007/K[note: i] in the Subordinate Courts as the value of the estate of the deceased did not exceed $3,000,000.
2. The 1st and 2nd plaintiffs entered caveats against the grant of probate being issued in favour of the defendant. The caveat number of the caveat entered by the 2nd plaintiff is DCCVP 21 of 2008[note: ii]. The caveat number of the caveat entered by the 1st plaintiff is DCCVP 22 of 2008[note: iii]. By an order of court dated 17th April 2008[note: iv], the plaintiffs were directed to issue process against the defendant in order that the issues in dispute arising from their objections would be resolved before a decision was taken in the defendant’s application for probate.
3. Hence was spawned the matter that came for trial before me. The trial before me occupied seven days. Five witnesses, including the plaintiffs, testified in support of their case. Seven witnesses, including the defendant, testified in support of the defence.
4. As will be seen, the story, is long in the telling at trial. On the other hand, the “principled and pragmatic” compass of the current wisdom in our courts, within which compass I have found myself helpfully guided, is a relatively short one. The truth, so far as truth may be gleaned according to the principles in this area of law and the evidentiary and procedural rules, bearing in mind the mores of our time and clime, is not at all far or hard to search.
Background:
5. The 1st plaintiff is the son, said to be adopted, of the deceased. The 2nd plaintiff is the 1st plaintiff’s wife and the deceased’s daughter in law. The 1st plaintiff’s father and the deceased’s husband, Lam Yin Meng Andrew, passed away on 21st May 1965. The 1st plaintiff’s only two siblings, his sisters, have also passed away, namely, Lam Kwai Yin Juliana on 23rd May 1964, and Lam Su Yin Barbara on 5th November 1998.[note: v]
6. The defendant is the niece of the deceased. She is the adopted daughter of the deceased’s elder sister, Agnes. Agnes was a spinster.
7. Agnes and the deceased had been very close. Agnes and the defendant resided with the deceased at XXXXX. The defendant moved out when she got married. Agnes stayed with the deceased until she passed away in June 2000, at the age of 85 years old.
8. The defendant says that the deceased came from a well-to-do peranakan family. She married her husband, then a civil servant, in the 1950’s. They lived a middle class lifestyle. The deceased had completed Senior Cambridge, which is equivalent to our ‘O’ levels today. Described by the 1st plaintiff as a social worker/administrative assistant, the defendant says more specifically that the deceased worked for more than a quarter of a century as a medical social worker at the Singapore General Hospital and had been awarded a long-service medal. From references to her having a civil service card upon admission to hospital in 2007, it appears that she retired from the civil service before she joined the Red Cross as an administrative officer.
9. According to the defendant, daughter Barbara’s passing at the young age of 38 in 1998 and Agnes’s in 2000 were “two major shocks in [the deceased’s] life”.
10. According to the 1st plaintiff, the deceased had prior to the will, had an earlier will dated 20th July 1989. This prior will was not in evidence.
11. The deceased passed away on 25th October 2007. This was seven years after she executed the will. She was 82 years old.[note: vi]
The will[note: vii]:
12. The will did not have a residuary clause. Although the plaintiffs dwelled on this in cross-examination, particularly of the lawyer who drafted the will, devoting much time to the question whether the deceased was advised what a residuary clause was, nothing appears to turn on this going by the parties’ closing submissions.
13. Apart from the three substantive clauses in the will, outlined in the next three paragraphs, there were no other bequests. In particular, there was no mention of any bank accounts.
14. It was provided in clause 2 that XXXXX was to be sold and the proceeds would be divided equally between the 1st plaintiff and the charities listed in Annexure ‘A’ of the will, in the proportions stated in the annexure. In fact, there were two sets of charitable organizations in the annexure, roughly speaking Catholic churches and others. The percentage that the 20 Catholic churches were to get totalled 67%, with the individual percentages varying between 2% (ten churches), 3% (four churches), 5% (five churches) and 10% (one church). The other charities, numbering 17, were to get a total of 33%, with the individual percentages varying between 1% (four charities), 2% (ten charities) and 3% (three charities). From the former bequests, it was obvious that the deceased loved her religion. From the latter bequests, it could be inferred that the deceased had a diverse and expansive desire to contribute to different causes, from children to the dying, from AIDS and disease to a foreign charity named “Missionary of St Paul and Mother Mary (Africa) Kenya”.
15. Clause 4 provided that jewellery in “DBS Bank (Bedok Branch) at YYYYY Singapore, Safe Deposit No. 0272 as at the date of my death” were to be given to the 2nd plaintiff.
16. Clause 5 provided that shares in the deceased’s securities account no. 1681-XXXX-XXXX, “namely 5000 CAPITALAND shares, 2000 SIA shares and 200 SINGTEL shares” were to be sold and given to two named sons of the plaintiffs and two named daughters of the defendant.
The pleadings:
The statement of claim:
17. The Statement of Claim (Amendment No. 2) is concerned with three classes of the deceased’s assets.
18. The defendant was the joint account holder with the deceased, at the time of her demise, in respect of two bank accounts, UOB account no. YYYYYY (“the UOB account”) and Citibank account no. YYYYYY (“the Citibank account”). It was said that these two accounts were started in 1999. These two accounts were not dealt with in the will. The plaintiffs said that the deceased had similarly held joint account(s) with the late Barbara and that the monies were paid into these two accounts entirely or predominantly by the deceased during her lifetime. It was said that the defendant’s role in respect of the two joint accounts was not beneficial but that of an “assisting”, or “akin to a trustee(’s)”, role. The plaintiffs made plain that they were placing reliance on “handwritten notes maintained by the deceased”[note: viii] to show that she maintained control over the accounts including all withdrawals.
19. The 1st plaintiff said that he asked the defendant “if she was aware of the UOB and Citibank accounts that the deceased had maintained to which the defendant said yes but informed the 1st plaintiff that the deceased had told her that the monies in the joint account were hers while she was in the hospital just before she died.”[note: ix] Relying on a handwritten note by the deceased, which included a sum of $5000 against the defendant’s name, the 1st plaintiff maintained that the defendant held the monies, totalling S$291,977.28, in the UOB account and the Citibank account “under a constructive or implied or resulting trust for the estate of the deceased.”[note: x] The plaintiffs listed nine purported particulars that were said to show that the defendant was a trustee for these two accounts, which may broadly be said to be that:
(i) at all times, the deceased maintained control over, kept track of and monitored, the two bank accounts;
(ii) the defendant never had use of the two bank accounts during the lifetime of the deceased;
(iii) the defendant knew or ought to have known that she was merely a trustee of the monies in the two bank accounts.
On the basis that the will did not include a residuary clause, the monies in the UOB account and the Citibank account thus fell into intestacy and should be held “by the defendant on trust for the 1st plaintiff who is the person entitled to the estate of the deceased in the event of any of the deceased’s property falling into intestacy.”[note: xi]
20. In reference to the shares, it is pleaded that the shares the subject of clause 5 of the will had been sold for a sum of $66,114.74 which had been deposited into either the UOB account or the Citibank account. It should be noted that the claim included a reference to 190 Singtel shares (whereas clause 5 of the will referred to 200 Singtel shares) and to 1000 Capitacom shares (on which clause 5 of the will is silent).[note: xii] It seems that the plaintiffs say that the deceased made immediate gift of the sum of $20,000 to the two sons of the plaintiffs although the sum was not taken owing to the plaintiffs enquiring about the taking out of “education policies” for the two sons[note: xiii].
21. With reference to the deceased’s jewellery, the plaintiffs stated that while clause 4 of the will made provisions for the 2nd plaintiff to have the jewellery in the named safe deposit box, they were placing reliance on “handwritten notes made by the defendant and endorsed by the deceased in 2006” for distribution of the jewellery to a number of persons, so that “[the will] does not continue to reflect the true intentions of the deceased as at her death.”[note: xiv]
22. The plaintiffs wanted declarations that the monies in the UOB account and the Citibank account, said to total $291,977.28, were held on a constructive and or implied and or resulting trust for the benefit of the deceased’s estate (ie, the 1st plaintiff), that clauses 4 and 5 of the will not longer reflected the deceased’s “true wishes and intentions” and were thus void, that the sum of $20,000 from the two joint bank accounts be held on trust...
To continue reading
Request your trial