Ex parte act carries little weight here

Trial Notebook

By Steven P. Garmisa

Hoey & Farina

Posted September 22, 2014 2:47 PM

Nine months after Tatyana Tovstorog filed a petition contending she was a great-niece of Carmel Bennoon — who died in Cook County in 2007 with no known heirs — a court in Ukraine issued an ex parte ruling that Tovstorog and Bennoon had a common paternal ancestor: Mendel Purkovich. Invoking the doctrine of comity, Tovstorog argued that the Illinois judiciary should defer to the Ukrainian judgment that she was Purkovich’s great-granddaughter. Tovstorog also argued that Julia Semenova — who was …

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