Canadian court rejects assertion of undue influence and suspicious circumstances in will challenge

The deceased’s will named her friend Katherine Blais (the respondent) as the primary trustee. The respondent’s husband was named as the alternate estate trustee and both were beneficiaries. The respondent was also the deceased’s attorney for property and attorney for personal care, although she did not act in either capacity.

The applicant last saw the deceased in 2011 and stayed in regular contact with her until 2019, whereupon all contact lapsed. The respondent and her husband became the deceased’s neighbour in 2007 and remained friends with her until her death in 2021.

The applicant asserted that the respondent was “a relative stranger who had taken [the deceased] to see at least two different lawyers to draft a will” and claimed that the circumstances surrounding the creation of the will were suspicious.

The court therefore had to consider if the applicant had met the minimal evidentiary threshold required to apply to challenge the will.

To the suggestion of lack of testamentary capacity, the court found that the applicant only provided speculation and did not have any objective evidence to suggest that the deceased lack capacity when she executed her will in 2020.

In terms of the accusation of undue influence, the court noted that there must be coercion and the influence imposed on the testator must be “so overpowering that the document reflects the will of the influencer and not that of the deceased”. Again, the court considered that the applicant had not presented any evidence that the respondent had attempted to influence the deceased regarding her will. Further, it added that even if the respondent had attempted to do so, there was no evidence that an attempt to influence the deceased was successful.

Finally, the court found that there was no evidence presented that suggested that the will was executed without the requisite formalities. In fact, not only did it find that there was “no evidence to rebut the presumption that [the deceased] had knowledge of and approved the contents of the will,” it went further, commenting: “[the respondent’s] evidence is sufficient to dispel any suspicion…about the circumstances at the time of execution of the will.”

Accordingly, the court concluded that the applicant did not meet the minimal evidentiary threshold required to challenge the will and dismissed the application (Graham v McNally Estate and Blais, 2024 ONSC 4006).

Sources

• CanLII
• Miller Thompson
• Canadian Lawyer
• WiseLaw Blog