UK court rules for animal charities in contested will case

LONDON — Britain’s Supreme Court ruled Wednesday against a woman who tried to overturn her mother’s will after the estate was left to animal charities.

Britain’s Supreme Court sided against Heather Ilott, a mother of five from Hertfordshire in southern England, who had won 160,000 pounds ($195,000) from a lower court after her mother left her out of her will.

The ruling was a victory for the Blue Cross, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The charities said the ruling confirmed the “right to choose who will inherit when we die.”

The ruling marked the end of a long legal fight that began after Ilott’s mother, Melita Jackson, left the majority of her 486,000 pound ($594,000) estate to charity — and told her executors to reject any efforts by her daughter to contest the will.