A CONTESTED will made by the late art collector Gordon Lambert capped his family’s interests at €200,000.
However his friend Anthony Lyons was to receive much of the residue of his estate, including a house sold for €4.5 million, the High Court was told yesterday.
The Irish Museum of Modern Art (Imma) was to have received €180,000 but this sum was reduced in a codicil at a later stage to € 15,000, Mr Justice Roderick Murphy was told.
Mr Lambert had suffered from Parkinson’s disease for about 20 years before he died in January 2005, aged in his 80s.
On the eleventh day of a legal challenge by some relatives to the 2003 will, Mr Lyons agreed, under cross-examination by James Gilhooly SC, for the family, that he would have received €400,000 under the terms of a will made in 2002 by Mr Lambert.
Asked if he would have been the beneficiary of about €4 million in the 2003 will, Mr Lyons said he didn’t think the estate was valued at that amount. He agreed a house in the estate was sold for €4.5 million and also agreed he was to receive three-quarters of the residue.
The case has been brought by Mr Lambert’s niece June Lambert, Pembroke Lane, Dublin, and her cousin Mark Lambert, Rathdown Park, Greystones, Co Wicklow. They are seeking to strike down the 2003 will and a condition disqualifying any beneficiary who challenges it. It is also alleged Mr Lyons exercised undue influence on Mr Lambert, which is denied by Mr Lyons.
The proceedings are against Mr Lyons, Churchtown, Dublin, Olive Beaumont, Heytesbury Lane, Ballsbridge, Dublin, who was a trustee of the Gordon Lambert collection and a senior curator at Imma and Catherine Marshall, Kevin Street, Dublin. There is no claim of impropriety against Ms Beaumont or Ms Marshall and all three reject the claims.
Yesterday, Anita Delaney told the court she cared for Mr Lambert from June 2003 to March 2005 and said he definitely knew his own mind.
Asked by Frank Callanan SC, for Mr Lyons, about the relationship between Mr Lyons and Mr Lambert, she said they were very good friends. Mr Lambert could be quite demanding of Mr Lyons and other people but he always looked forward to Mr Lyons coming, she said. Mr Lambert would call Mr Lyons nearly every night. They had a good relationship and Mr Lyons’s attitude to Mr Lambert was “very good”.
Asked whether Mr Lambert discussed his family with her, Ms Delaney said: “Maybe on one occasion he said if the family phones please don’t put me through . . . I am busy.”
Ms Delaney said she had not received any instructions from Mr Lyons that members of Mr Lambert’s family were not to be let in. Both men “just bounced off each other” and had much in common such as gardening, dogs and television. There was a great rapport between the two of them, she said.
Patricia Rickard Clarke, a solicitor for Mr Lambert, said he was meticulous in his affairs but didn’t want his family involved. She never thought he would be “unduly influenced” by Mr Lyons.
The hearing continues on Tuesday.