The High Court has recently ruled that a man is entitled to benefit under a family trust despite finding that he was not the biological child of the settlor.
The trust had been set up by a businessman in 2003 and included as its beneficiaries ‘the children and remoter issue of the settlor’. In 2010, the businessman’s wife told the elder of her two sons that his biological father was not the businessman but another man with whom she had had a relationship. Her younger son became aware of this in 2023 and challenged his brother’s entitlement to benefit under the trust.
The Court first had to determine whether the elder brother was the businessman’s biological child. DNA testing indicated that the two brothers were 25 times more likely to be half siblings than full siblings. Considering the witness evidence, the Court rejected the elder brother’s assertion that there was uncertainty about the younger brother’s parentage, preferring the mother’s evidence that her relationship with the other man had ended years before the younger brother was born. The Court found that the elder brother was not the businessman’s biological child.
Having so concluded, the Court went on to consider the meaning of ‘children’ in the trust settlement. The Court observed that the word ‘children’ had a natural meaning and would not include stepchildren unless the context indicated otherwise. However, it noted that both brothers had been raised as the children of the businessman and his wife. The elder brother’s birth certificate named the businessman as his father and the businessman had believed he was his biological father. The Court noted that the trust settlement used the word ‘children’ rather than ‘child’: there was no indication that the businessman believed he had any other children, and he and his wife would have been unlikely to have further children after the trust settlement was drafted.
The Court found that a reasonable person, in possession of the relevant facts, would conclude that the businessman had intended the word ‘children’ to mean the two brothers. There was no reason to think the businessman might have intended to treat them unequally, and applying the natural meaning of the word ‘children’ would create a significant inequality.