The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1869-09-04 00:00:00

CURIOUS WILL CASE IN JERSEY.

The Royal Court of Jersey has given, in the following
curitus will case, which involved the question, never
brought before under the notice of the Court, whether
the stntexce of a French criminal court could be made
op .rative in the Island of Jersey in a civil suit. The
particulars of the came, which excited considerable in-
terest, Were as follows
On the 18:h of May, 1847, Jean Pierre Maigne
(under the name of Jean MaignY) was, by a sentence
of the Criminal AFIS:V-11 of tile et Vilaine, held at thy
Palais de Justice at Rennes, condemned to penal err
vitude for life (traraux forre,s 6 per74bliti).
who was tried during his absence, managed to escape
to Jersey, where, with his wife, he lived till his death
in October, 1862. According to the French penal
code this condemnation carries with it civil death, and
the 26th article of the code defines the effectpf this to

be that the condemned person loses all the property he
possesses, which falls to his heirs in the same manner
as though he had died a natural death and had
I left no will. He is also incapacitated from making
a will, or receiving property bequeathed to him under
a will, and his marriage is dissolved so far as all civil
rights are concerned, leaving his wife and his heirs to
he free exercise of all the rights which his natural
•leath would give theme Maigne and his wife, after
their arrival in Jersey, possessed some money, which
WILY placed in the name of the wife in the Poet-office
Savings Bank, and part in the Commercial Bank, the
husband, however, drawing upon the amounts. The
wife died in May, 1880, and at the time of the death
the husband, in October, 1862, there was in the
.avings bank the sum of £2Ol Os. 31. and in the
Commercial Bank I:108 6s. Bd. By his will Maigne
bequeathed this money to be divided among the
1 French poor residing in Jersey, and appointed
' the Rev. J. F. Volckeryck, Roman Catholic
priest at St. Helier'., Jersey, trustee for the same.
An injunction was served upon the banks not to pay
over the moneys, and the will was attacked by Michel
Pierce Bertel, principal heir of Mai,M,s wife, nee
Julienne Jeanne Bertel, on the ground that the said
will was invalid, and further that it had been made at
the suggestion of the defendant, who had used his
influence under his office of confessor. No evi-
dence on this point was, however, tendered, and the
Attorney-General, who opposed for the trustee, con-
tended that the French law was not applicable to
Jersey, and that inasmuch as the deceased had resided
there for several years, and that the will had la-en duly
registered according to the laws of the Island, the
Court was bound to consider the case and decide
thereon agreeably to Jersey law and custom, losing
sight altogether of the French law and its bearing on
the case. .

The cage was heard two months ago, and the judg-
ment, which was delivered on Thursday, was in favour
of the defendant, the Court considering that the
deceased, having resided so long in Jersey, had become
amenable to its laws, and further, that the civil death
which followed as a consequence of the French sen-
tence, though it might be operative in France, could
not extend to Jersey, espe:dally when the wife of the
deceased did not take the bruttit of the French
sentence, but continued to live with her husband
till her death. An appeal against the judgment was
put in.