Estate of Locke
New Hampshire Supreme Court
813 A.2d 1172 (2002)
Locke died intestate survived by maternal first cousins Jean and Marion (plaintiffs, four degrees of kinship) and paternal first cousins once removed (defendants, five degrees of kinship, exceeding the four-degree limit on taking by representation), and the probate court split the estate in half between the two family sides, awarding the maternal cousins their half equally and the paternal cousins once removed their half equally; Jean and Marion appealed, arguing the paternal side's more remote relatives were entirely barred from inheriting anything given the statutory four-degree limit on representation.
Whether collateral descendants who are entitled to a share in the decedent's estate by intestate succession may take, other than by representation, if they are more than four degrees of kinship removed from the decedent.