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Married:
- Marriage Registration # 016138, Berlin, Waterloo Co. 18 March 1913, Norman Hipel, 22, Preston, Breslau, B., Carpenter Contractor, United Brethren, s/o Henry Hipel & Louisa Pelz, married Olive Eby, 22, Breslau, Wallace, S., United Brethren, d/o George Eby & Elizabeth Shupe.
Daughter of politician seeks $20 million over 1953 will
December 03, 2009 By Brian Caldwell, Record staff
KITCHENER — A family scandal more than 55 years in the making is now being aired in a $20-million lawsuit in a Kitchener courtroom.
At the heart of the dispute is a will left by Norman Hipel, a prominent Cambridge politician and businessman who died in 1953.
A former mayor of Preston and Liberal MPP who held high-profile posts in the provincial cabinet, Hipel was survived by his wife, Olive, and their two children, George and Norma.
The will specified that his considerable estate was to be equally divided between his children following the death of his wife, who was to live off its income until then.
His assets should have been split up and distributed when Olive died in 1978.
But in a case that went to trial this week, Norma, 89, claims she wasn't told about her inheritance and didn't receive any money while she struggled to raise seven children in poverty.
Now named Norma Jacques and living in Calgary, she is expected to testify today in a bid to right that alleged wrong.
"My client is here to see that justice is done," her lawyer, David Smith, said in his opening address. "It's that simple."
Jacques claims she didn't know about her entitlement until 2004, when one of her daughters found Hipel's will in public archives.
Her lawsuit accused her brother George — who died in 2004 — of improperly seizing ownership of their father's sawmill and construction company, N.O. Hipel Ltd., then plundering its assets and depriving her of her inheritance.
She alleges her family disapproved of her marriage to a Catholic man of French-Canadian background.
That aspect of the case was settled out of court last year when George's estate, valued at $1.2 million, agreed to pay Jacques $300,000 and gave her his $260,000 house on Queenston Road.
"Norma was clearly victimized by her own brother," Smith said.
The other prong of the lawsuit is aimed at the trust company — Waterloo Trust, which has since been acquired by TD Canada Trust — that was hired to administer Hipel's estate.
Jacques claims it didn't live up to its responsibility to properly manage the assets or ensure she got her half of them.
TD Canada Trust is defending the lawsuit, which is complicated by the fact that files on the Hipel estate were lost or destroyed.
Ross Earnshaw, a lawyer for the company, said in his opening address there is "circumstantial evidence" Jacques in fact got her inheritance around 1966, when her family's home and small business was destroyed by fire.
He also outlined several technical arguments involving the passage of time, including one that Jacques simply waited too long to make her claim when she knew, or ought to have known, about it.
That defence is based in part on documents Jacques signed in 1955 and 1956 suggesting she had been informed of the provisions in her father's will.
The trial is expected to continue into 2010.
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