The High Court has admitted a copy of a 1997 will to probate after finding that a priest’s attempt to replace it with an invalid document did not revoke the earlier will unconditionally. The court also appointed his nephew as administrator with the will annexed.
Patrick John Mannion, an Irish priest who served in San Antonio, Texas, died in 2017 aged 82. His 1997 will left his books to his friend Virginia Guadiano and the remainder of his estate to the Missionaries of Charity. It named Guadiano as executrix. Mannion later gave the original will to her, then recovered it in 2007 when he returned to Ireland.
In 2014, Mannion gave his nephew Michael Shields a sealed envelope he said contained his will. It held a document assembled from altered and copied pages, including a page from the 1997 will. The 2014 document named Shields as executor and changed some bequests, but the court found it had not been validly executed and was not a valid will.
The original 1997 will could not be found after Mannion’s death. Under Irish law, the court said, a will retained by a testator and later missing is presumed to have been destroyed with the intention of revoking it. The question was whether that revocation was conditional on the replacement document being valid.
Justice Allen found that the 1997 will’s missing pages had been removed when Mannion assembled the 2014 document, which he believed would replace the earlier will. The judge inferred that the two acts were contemporaneous and interrelated, and concluded that Mannion intended the revocation to depend on the validity of the replacement. As the replacement was invalid, the condition was not met and the 1997 will remained effective.
The court admitted the will to probate using copies of its original pages together with the surviving original fourth page, disregarding initials later added to that page. The order followed an application by Guadiano, supported by Shields. A relative who appeared to follow the application did not oppose it.
Guadiano, aged 87 and in poor health, asked the court to appoint Shields to administer the estate with the will annexed. The court granted that application under section 27(4) of the Succession Act 1965, finding special circumstances made the appointment expedient. It ordered that the costs of the application be paid from the estate.