Riggs V's Palmer

(5) Since Francis the testator the one who wrote the will is dead, the defendant says the will must go into effect. This is controversial because just because the defendant is saying that the will must go into effect does not necessarily mean that the will must go into effect and he gets his earnings. However in this court case, the defendant had said that the testator, who was the one who wrote the will and added his grandson into his will, had passed away. Since the testator passed away, the defendant known as the grandson had said since his grandfather had died the will must go into effect and must given his reward. This is true because a legal will is supposed to go into effect as soon as a person has passed away. The defendant in this case is just trying to get what is legally deserved to him since the will clearly states that the grandson will be rewarded with the property is he outlives his grandfather which technically did happen. It does not state anywhere in the will that if the grandson was to murder his grandfather, as he did in this situation by poisoning him, he will not be able to gain his property. The grandson should then be able to assume that he must be rewarded with the property since he met the legal requirement of the will. A will should be followed the same way it is written and since the grandfather did not put he will not receive any reward if he was to murder him then the defendant has a right to say he should be rewarded however, aside all of this the defendant altered the timing of the will by murdering his grandfather and that does not deserve to be rewarded because if the court cannot alter the will then why should he be able to alter the timing of the will to come true. (9) However the intention is not for the one who wrote the will to be murdered and for the person under the will to receive the rewards. This is also controversial because it is to vague to say in which, it does not specifically say that the person will not receive his reward if the grandfather is murdered by the grandson. One could say that the testator could have possibly changed his mind if he knew his grandson would have murdered him to get his reward quicker. Just because there is no law that says that the person under the will is murdered by one of the people or the person under a will, does not mean that the person or people under the will do not get their earnings. However, just as was mentioned before, it would have been an entirely different story if the grandfather would have known ahead of time that his grandson was trying to plot against him to kill him. Going back to the first scenario, the defendant had said that he deserves the rewards of the will because the will has been fulfilled by the grandfathers death. The defendant is also just assuming that. Anything else could have happened before the natural death of the grandfather that could have changed or altered the rewards of the property to be given to the defendant. Lets take for example, the grandfather might have outlived the grandson instead of the grandfather dying before the grandson. Now the will would have had to been altered by the grandfather since the person he requested to give his property to would have passed away and the defendant would have never got his property. Or maybe imagine another simpler situation happening between the grandfather and the grandson. Suppose the grandfather and the grandson would have gotten into an argument. The grandfather may have now had a change of mind in giving the property to his grandson and would have probably removed him from the will which now would have effected the grandson from getting his property. It is like premise nine says, the intention of a will is not to murder the person to be able to get the rewards quicker. The will is made to be able to give the belongings of a person who passes away down to the people he or she wants to pass it down to. He does not deserve to get his rewards from the will because he violated the purpose of a will.