Is a Suicide Notice a Legitimate Will?

Underneath primary Estates regulation ideas, a Will is a testamentary instrument.  A codicil, in distinction, is actually an “addendum” to a legitimate Will.  It doesn’t displace the unique Will – it simply provides to it.

And what a couple of suicide word?  It’s a new Will, or a codicil?  Or neither?

That was the crux of the query earlier than the Ontario Courtroom of Attraction in McGrath v. Pleasure. The info concerned a person named Joseph, who had made a legitimate handwritten Will in 2016.  In it, he made sure bequests to his long-time pal and enterprise associate Dexter, together with shares he owned in two of the firms they ran collectively.  

However in 2019 Joseph commit suicide – however not earlier than leaving a signed, two-page suicide word within the pocket of his shorts.  It was drafted after a day of ingesting alcohol and smoking hash oil. As soon as once more, it was in Joseph’s personal handwriting.

The suicide word started with Joseph apologizing for killing himself.  Then he accused his spouse of driving him to do it.  Subsequent, he gave directions about who was to attend his funeral, and the way his ashes have been to be unfold.  And within the remaining sentences, he wrote that he needed Dexter to ensure his spouse didn’t “get something,” and added that “every thing” was to go to Michael, and to Michael’s son.  Dexter was in any other case not talked about in any respect. 

Now that Joseph was gone, a dispute arose between Michael and Dexter as to the influence of the suicide word on their entitlements from Joseph’s property. They utilized to the courtroom for its ruling.

Dexter needed a declaration that the 2016 Will was nonetheless intact, and that the suicide word was merely a codicil to it. The suicide word couldn’t be a separate legitimate Will, he mentioned, for the reason that obviously-despondent Joseph was clearly not in the fitting way of thinking when he wrote it.  Particularly after a day of ingesting and medicines, Joseph didn’t have testamentary capability to make a legitimate Will simply earlier than killing himself the following day.

Alternatively, in keeping with Dexter, if Joseph’s suicide word was dominated to be a legitimate testamentary doc then it ought to be thought-about merely a “codicil” (i.e. an add-on) to his 2016 Will, and mustn’t influence Dexter’s inheritance beneath it. 

Michael’s argument in response was easy:  He needed the suicide word to be declared a stand-alone new and legitimate Will, which revoked the 2016 model. That meant he and his son would get Joseph’s whole Property.

The matter ended up earlier than the Courtroom of Attraction, which dominated that Joseph did certainly have testamentary capability and a “sound disposing thoughts” when he wrote the suicide word.  In coming to this conclusion, the courtroom famous that Joseph:

• Understood the character and impact of a Will,
• Recollected the character and extent of his property,
• Understood the extent of what he was giving beneath the Will, and
• Understood the character of the claims that is likely to be introduced by an individual excluded from the desire.

This meant that Joseph’s suicide word met the necessities for a legitimate handwritten (holograph) Will.  His earlier 2016 Will was revoked by it, and Dexter ended up being lower out. (And Dexter later utilized to have the enchantment re-opened, however he was unsuccessful). 

For the total textual content of the choices, see:

McGrath v. Pleasure, 2022 ONCA 119 (CanLII), <https://canlii.ca/t/jm975>,

McGrath v. Pleasure, 2023 ONCA 46 (CanLII), <https://canlii.ca/t/jv3jh>

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