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A Newmarket, Ont., judge made legal history this week by overturning a man’s last will and testament because his deathbed pleas were overtly racist.

Judge C.A. Gilmore overturned Jamaican-born Rector Emanuel (Eric) Spence’s will, because he had disinherited a daughter who gave birth to a white man’s child.

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It is the first known example of a judge nullifying an entire will on the grounds that the motivations of the dead offended “public policy.”

Mr. Spence, who died alone in 2013, disowned his daughter when he found out she was carrying the infant. Instead, he left $400,000 to another daughter whom he barely knew in the U.K., largely out of anger and spite.

The court documents show that Mr. Spence and his daughter, Verolin, had an excellent relationship until 2002.

Then, according to the ruling:

“Verolin’s relationship with her father came to a dramatic end. She told her father that she was pregnant and that the father of her child was Caucasian. Her father exclaimed that he was ashamed of Verolin and from that point onwards, the deceased restricted his communication with her … He would not allow a white man’s child in his house.”