The Court of Appeal has rejected an appeal by three parties seeking to overturn the will of Edward Joseph Murphy, who died in San Francisco in January 2019.
Ms Justice Máire Whelan upheld a High Court ruling that Frances Lynch, Hugh Fitzgibbon and York Design Limited lacked standing to challenge the will or revoke the Irish grant of probate issued in May 2020.
Mr Murphy’s will named his two sons and three nephews as beneficiaries and appointed his nephew Gregory Olan Murphy as executor. The three appellants accept that they receive nothing under the will and would receive nothing if it were set aside and the estate distributed on intestacy.
Their connection to the estate arises instead from separate Cork Circuit Court proceedings. Ms Lynch claims an interest in a Kinsale property owned by the deceased. The executor has brought separate debt proceedings against Mr Fitzgibbon and York Design Limited.
The appellants argued that the will should be open to challenge because they had raised allegations including forgery, lack of testamentary capacity and undue influence. They also relied on what they described as the public interest in ensuring questionable wills can be scrutinised.
The Court of Appeal rejected that approach. It held that standing in a probate action is a preliminary procedural requirement. A claimant must have a sufficient financial interest or possible interest in the estate. The strength of allegations about the will cannot create standing where none otherwise exists.
The court also rejected reliance on the Supreme Court decision in Vella v Morelli, noting that the plaintiff in that case stood to inherit if the challenged will failed.
The appeal was dismissed. The court’s provisional view was that executor Gregory Olan Murphy should recover his costs in both the Court of Appeal and High Court, subject to any written submissions seeking a different order.