Welcome to Cases That Should Have Gone to the Supreme Court of Canada, But Didn’t! This week, lawyer Kyla Lee discusses estate law.
Acumen Law Corporation lawyer Kyla Lee gives her take on a made-in-Canada court case each week and discusses why these cases should have been heard by Canada’s highest court: the Supreme Court of Canada.
Two months before Martin Williamson passed away, he was diagnosed with significant brain tumours which were the cause of his death. After his diagnoses, he amended his will to completely disinherit his daughter.
After his death, she sued the estate arguing that her father lacked the capacity to amend his will given his brain tumours and the natural consequence of irrational decision making that would result from the tumours.
She was successful in her application, however, the estate trustees defended the litigation in an excessive and overly aggressive manner trying to keep her from getting anything.
At the end of the litigation, the court awarded over $300,000 in costs against the trustees. Ordinarily, those court costs are paid out of the estate itself. But in this case, because of the way the trustees behaved, they were ordered to pay the costs personally.
The trustees appealed, seeking leave to the Supreme Court of Canada which was denied.
The SCC neglected a major issue here which is how can you force somebody to be in an adversarial role, and then punish them for being adversarial in that role if they are truly doing what they believed the deceased thought was best with their estate?
The SCC missed the opportunity here to clarify the laws of when personal costs can be awarded against people who aren’t lawyers and shouldn’t know better.
Watch the video for more.
