In a recent decision from the Superior Court of Justice, the court addressed an applicant’s request to be appointed an estate trustee for personal gain, emphasizing the need for impartiality and full transparency from fiduciaries.
In Eaman, the applicant, the daughter of the deceased, applied to be appointed as succeeding estate trustee of her father’s estate, who died in 2021. She was not named in her father’s will as either a beneficiary or an estate trustee; the appointed estate trustee, who was also sole beneficiary, had already fully administered the estate and resigned from the role in 2023.
However, the applicant had previously brought a will challenge proceeding against the estate, alleging that her father’s testamentary documents were invalid for lack of testamentary capacity, undue influence, suspicious circumstances, and lack of knowledge and approval. The will challenge was settled in 2023, and the applicant received the entire residue of the estate as part of that settlement.
Shortly thereafter, the applicant commenced a negligence action against the drafting solicitor of her father’s will, a proceeding which is still ongoing. The damages in this action largely relate to the applicant’s legal fees from the will challenge, which were not covered by the settlement. Accordingly, her subsequent application to be appointed as estate trustee was primarily to pursue this negligence claim to recover these fees.
The drafting solicitor was granted leave to intervene on this application given his clear interest in the matter. He argued that the applicant’s only reason for pursuing the appointment was to create a relationship giving rise to a duty of care between herself and the drafting solicitor, so that she can recover her personal legal expenses from the previous application.
The court agreed with the drafting solicitor and dismissed the application, citing the clear conflict of interest that would exist if it were to allow her to become estate trustee to pursue a personal claim. It highlighted that the primary duty of an estate trustee is to faithfully carry out the testator’s wishes and administer the estate in accordance with the terms of the will, and the relief sought was held to be inequitable given the lack of any proven incapacity of the deceased. The court also noted that to revisit the minutes of settlement from the will challenge would be an abuse of process, since the applicant chose not to have her legal fees covered in the settlement, but instead received a larger payout from the estate.
As we’ve blogged about in the past (for example, Mandana’s recent blog here), personal interests cannot override the fiduciary duties owed to an estate, and Eaman serves as a clear reminder that conflicts of interest in that regard will not be tolerated by the courts.