Deceased Millionaire’s Family Sues After DNA Test Reveals Heir isn’t Related

Elis Gosta Hjukstrom, a resident of Vancouver that previously immigrated from Sweden, was a self-made millionaire through his import and distribution business in Canada. He passed away in 2017 of cancer at the age of 87, leaving his business and a family estate in Sweden to a Swedish man named Kenth Lundback that Hjukstrom called son, totaling a worth of $14 million.

Now Hjukstrom’s extended family in Sweden has filed a civil suit against Lundback, claiming that he and his mother manipulated and deceived the millionaire for 50 years into believing the younger man was his son so as to compel Hjukstrom into bequeathing him his fortune. The suit came after a paternity test conducted after Hjukstrom’s death revealed that he was not Lundback’s father. In response, Lundback claims that Hjukstrom knew that he may not be his father, but still maintained a warm relationship that was “akin to a father/son relationship.”

Hjukstrom hailed from a highly impoverished family, and in fact never knew his biological father, and two of his siblings were adopted out because his mother couldn’t afford to care for them. He moved to Canada in 1957, but came back to visit family in Sweden regularly. In 1960, he had a romantic relationship with Ingrid Jonsson, Lundback’s mother before heading back to Vancouver. In 1964, Hjukstrom wrote to Jonsson and told her of his entrepreneurial success, in which that she responded she had a young son born a few months after they had been together.

“If I am in fact Kenth’s father, I will of course take responsibility,” Hjukstrom wrote back. Ingrid responded that he was the father of her son, but also said “I don’t think you need to tell anyone about it.” Ingrid passed away in 2008, and both her and her son were included in Hjukstrom will as far back as 1966.

See Maryse Zeidler, Deceased Millionaire’s Family Sues After DNA Test Reveals Heir isn’t Related, CBC.ca, January 5, 2019.

Special thanks to Eric A. Chiappinelli (Frank McDonald Endowed Professor of Law, Texas Tech) for bringing this article to my attention.