Richard Wild (judge)

Sir Herbert Richard Churton Wild (20 September 1912 – 22 May 1978) was the ninth Chief Justice of New Zealand.

Family
Wild was born in Blenheim in 1912. His father, Leonard Wild, was at that time science teacher at Marlborough High School. He attended Feilding Agricultural High School. His sister Dora later married the jurist John White. His son, John Wild, was a judge at the High Court and then the Court of Appeal.

Chief justice
He famously decided the case of Fitzgerald v Muldoon in 1976.

Wild was diagnosed with a brain tumour in 1977. He resigned as Chief Justice in early 1978 and died shortly after.