A recent decision from the Court of Appeal for Onta
rio, Dujardin v Dujardin, 2018 ONCA 597, considers an appeal with respect to a Will challenge on the basis that the testator lacked testamentary capacity. The testator in this situation was a frequent consumer of alcohol. Despite what the trial judge called the testator’s “chronic alcoholism”, it seemed as though he was able to function normally on a day-to-day basis, including in business dealings relating to a family farm owned by the testator and his brother. Following the testator’s death, his wife disputed his Will, under which she received no benefit.
Recently, my colleagues, Noah Weisberg and Garrett Horrocks, discussed whether the classic test for testamentary capacity as set out in Banks v Goodfellow should be updated, and a new test as proposed in an article in the Canadian Bar Review, Vol 95 No. 1 (2017), Banks v Goodfellow (1870): Time to Update the Test for Testamentary Capacity.
The article opines that the context of the testator, including, for instance, family dynamics, should be incorporated explicitly into the test for testamentary capacity. This means that we would be asking the question: “can this particular person, with his or her particular mental abilities, in this particular situation, make this particular Will, at this particular time?”, rather than “can this testator make a Will?”
I thought the suggestions in the article were interesting when considering the facts of the Dujardin decision, and the findings of the trial judge. It seems as though the lower court took into account a number of contextual factors in applying the Banks v Goodfellow test, ultimately leading to a conclusion that the testator did possess the requisite testamentary capacity, a conclusion which was upheld by the Court of Appeal.
In particular, some of the interesting contextual factors included:
- the history of the testator and his brother’s ownership and operation of the family farm, and the brothers’ consistent desires to leave their respective shares of the farm to each other upon their death;
- prior mirror Wills executed by the brothers 13 years before the testator’s death, which reflected the same intention as the later Will that was being challenged (the testator’s prior will was revoked in 2000 when he married his wife); and
- the testator’s relationship dynamic with his wife, with whom it appeared he was not close, and the provision that he made for her outside of his Will.
In particular, the Court of Appeal commented that “[g]enerally, the manner in which [the testator] disposed of his property made sense in the context of his life and familial relationships.”
Had the trial judge not considered the various contextual factors, it’s possible she could have arrived at a different conclusion. Subject to the medical evidence, given that the testator suffered from alcoholism, it may have been open to the court to conclude that this condition had, in fact, affected the testator’s cognition.
In any event, it is interesting to see a practical example of the ideas put forth in the article mentioned above, and to consider how the suggestions of the authors may come into play in real-world situations.
Thanks for reading,
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