Heathfield v. St. Jacques

Although the Wills, Estates and Succession Act has now been in effect for over a year, in most of the court cases being reported now, the Courts are dealing with the law as it stood before the effective date of March 31, 2014. This is because most of the provisions of the Wills, Estates and Succession Act only apply if the date of death occurred after the legislation came into effect. It is interesting to note how the law would have applied in some of the recent cases if the deceased had died on or after March 31, 2014.

The recent decision of Madam Justice Ballance in Heathfield v. St. Jacques, 2015 BCSC 505, provides an illustration.

When Michael Heathfield made his will on August 7, 2004, he was in a common-law relationship with Nicole St. Jacques. They had a child together with another on the way. In his will, he appointed Ms. St. Jacques as his executor. He left his estate to her if she survived him by thirty days, and if not, the will provided that his estate would be held in trusts for his children, until each attained the age of 25.

Mr. Heathfield and Ms. St. Jacques later separated. They divided their property. Their two children resided primarily with her, and he paid child support to her.

Instead of making a new will, Mr. Heathfield wrote in changes on his 2004 will, essentially stating that Ms. St. Jacques would not receive any of his estate, which would go to their two children. These changes were not witnessed by two witnesses as required under the Wills Act. He told others that he wanted his estate to go to his children, rather than to his former common-law spouse.

When Mr. Heathfield died on November 13, 2011, he left an estate valued at approximately $1.2 million.

Ms. St. Jacques as his executor obtained a grant of probate of the will.

The Public Guardian and Trustee of British Columbia brought an application under the Wills Variation Act on behalf of Mr. Heathfield’s two young children to vary the will. The Public Guardian and Trustee argued that the will should be varied so that the estate would be held in trust for each child until that child attains the age of 25, with the Public Guardian and Trustee acting as trustee of the funds.

Ms. St. Jacques opposed the application. She agreed that the estate should be used to benefit the two children, but argued that a formal trust was unnecessary. She as their mother would use the inheritance for their benefit. If the will was varied in favour of the two children, she asked the court to appoint her as trustee of funds.

In opposing the application to vary the will, Ms. St. Jacques relied on a previous Supreme Court of British Columbia decision, Cameron(Public Trustee of) v. Cameron Estate (1991), 41 E.T.R. 30, in which the Court declined to vary a will of a minor child’s mother. In that case, Mrs. Cameron left her estate to her husband, who was the father of the child. The trial judge found that Mr. Cameron was properly maintaining and supporting their child, and refused to vary the will.

Madam Justice Ballance varied Mr. Heathfield’s will by deleting the gift to Ms. St. Jacques, and creating trusts similar to those in the will for each of the two children in respect of the residue of the estate.

In arriving at her decision, Madam Justice Ballance declined to follow the decision in Cameron for two reasons. First, Cameron was decided before the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Tataryn v. Tataryn Estate, [1994] 2 S.C.R. 807, which provided a framework for determining if a adequate provision has been made, including an analysis of the will-maker’s legal and moral obligations to a spouse and children. Madam Justice Ballance expressed doubt as to whether Cameron is good authority for the proposition that a will should not be varied whenever a minor child’s surviving parent is the sole beneficiary of the will in light of the Tataryn framework.

Secondly, the circumstances in Heathfield are different. In contrast to Cameron, a case in which the court found that the wife and husband relied on each other to provide for their child, following his separation from Ms. St. Jacques, Mr. Heathfield made it clear that he did not rely on Ms. St. Jacques.

Madam Justice Ballance found that Mr. Heathfield had legal obligations to his children, as reflected in the child support he was paying, and moral obligations to them. In leaving a will that made no provision for them, Mr. Heathfield did not meet those legal and moral obligations. In contrast, he did not have those obligations to Ms. St. Jacques, who was not a person who could have applied to vary the will under the Wills Variation Act.

In her reasons for judgment, Madam Justice Ballance noted how the Wills, Estates and Succession Act has changed the law in a couple of respects that would have been significant to this case if Mr. Heathfield had died after it came into effect.

As she wrote at paragraph 82, under section 56, unless there is a contrary intention expressed in the will, “a gift to a person who has ceased to be a married spouse or a common-law spouse is revoked and must be distributed as if the surviving spouse had predeceased the will-maker.”

Section 58 of the Wills, Estates, and Succession Act would have allowed the court to give effect to Mr. Heathfield's handwritten notes on his will despite the fact that they were not witnessed if the court were satisfied that the notes represented his testamentary intentions.

Accordingly, if Mr. Heathfield had died on or after March 31, 2014, the children would likely have received his estate without having to resort to an application to vary the will under wills variation legislation (now Part 4, Division 6, of the Wills, Estates and Succession Act).

Madam Justice Ballance did accede to Ms. St. Jacques request that she be appointed as trustee of the trusts for the children, and she declined the Public Guardian and Trustee’s submission that Ms. St. Jacques should be restricted as trustee in her ability to access income from the trust for the benefit of the children.