Gail Evans died intestate on July 30, 1992. She was survived by her two sons from a first marriage, Richard and Donald, and by her second husband, Carlton. Carlton was the administrator (i.e. estate trustee) of Gail’s estate. The parties agreed Carlton was entitled to a preferential share of $75,000 and one third of the
I recently travelled to Washington, DC. I was again reminded of the grandeur of a capital city and how well the Americans celebrate their past, Founding Fathers, and assorted heroes. American myth making can be beguiling. I had the opportunity to tour the Capital Building and George Washington’s ancestral home, Mount Vernon. It was at
In estate disputes, it is common for parties to try to claw back into the estate bank accounts that were held jointly with the testator before death. The law provides a mechanism to do this – a resulting trust. Briefly, a resulting trust works as follows: any time property is transferred to someone else for
You don’t often hear about a motion for security for costs in estate litigation (if nothing else the parties are usually very much present in the jurisdiction and have some financial worth). However, estate litigants have been ordered to post security for costs just as in any other civil litigation. Equally, estate litigants have successfully
In a recent decision by the Ontario Court of Appeal, the court turned its attention to a frequently encountered issue in civil litigation: under what circumstances should an action be dismissed for delay by the court following a status hearing? The appellant (plaintiff) appealed a lower court order dismissing the action for delay after a status hearing.
