Yesterday I blogged about the limited circumstances in which the court will interfere with a trustee’s discretionary decisions while administering a trust. Simply put, as confirmed by the Ontario Court of Appeal in Fox v. Fox Estate in citing to the old English decision of Gisborne v. Gisborne, although generally speaking the court will not interfere with a trustee’s decisions while administering a trust, they may do so under limited circumstances and intervene if the trustee’s decision was made with what is known as “mala fides” which roughly translates as “bad faith”.
While Gisborne v. Gisborne makes it clear that the court will not interfere with a trustee’s discretion unless there is “mala fides“, it does not provide much guidance regarding what would constitute “mala fides” or “bad faith” on the part of the trustee. In Fox v. Fox Estate, in recognizing that there is little guidance with respect to what constitutes “bad faith”, the Court of Appeal cites to the article “Judicial Control of Trustees’ Discretions” by Professor Maurice Cullity (as he then was) in trying to provide some guidance for what will constitute “bad faith”. In summarizing his position with respect to what will constitute “mala fides” on the part of a trustee in exercising their discretionary authority, Prof. Cullity provides the following summary:
“Yet, it seems clear that the mala fides which will justify the intervention of the court must extend a considerable distance beyond the requirement of personal honesty. If the doctrine of fraud on a power permits the courts to intervene to strike down attempts to exercise a power which is vested in a person who is not a trustee, the jurisdiction over trustees must be at least as extensive. In very broad terms, that doctrine invalidates any attempt to exercise a power which is intended to achieve a purpose other than that for which the power was conferred. It is unquestionable that fraud in this sense is within the concept of mala fides.” [emphasis added]
Prof. Cullity’s definition of “mala fides“, whereby he advises that the court’s utilization of such a doctrine is intended to invalidate “any attempt to exercise a power which is intended to achieve a purpose other than that for which the power was conferred“, could offer some guidance on the kind of circumstances in which the court will interfere with a trustee’s discretion. It would appear that the fundamental question to be considered by the court in determining whether a decision was made in “bad faith” is in effect whether the decision is in keeping with the original intention of the trust. If the answer is “yes”, the court will not interfere with the discretionary decision by the trustee. If the answer is “no”, the circumstances may be such that the court will interfere with the decision on the grounds that it was made in “bad faith”.
Thank you for reading.