Wills & Trusts Law Reports | Spring 2024 #194The plaintiffs were three of the four children of the deceased, who died in 2015. They contended that the deceased lacked capacity when making wills in 2004. Instructions for the wills had been taken by the defendant, who had prepared them and supervised their execution. Had the wills not been made, the deceased’s estate would have passed to the plaintiffs and their sibling, subject to a life interest in realty for the deceased’s widow; the effect of the wills was to confer on the widow additional benefits. Following the death of the deceased, the plaintiffs and their sibling challenged ...
Harry Sheehan analyses the recent Supreme Court decision of Vedanta ‘A parent company may not only be directly liable for harm caused as a result of flawed policies or systems it has designed, but also by a failure properly to implement and enforce policies or systems it has designed even when they are not flawed.’ …
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Liam Ryan examines the Supreme Court’s decision in the case of Darnley and its potential wider impact ‘There is a tendency in some courts to elide breach of duty and scope of duty issues with the concept of a duty of care (as had the majority in the Court of Appeal).’ There is an interesting …
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Julian Matthews examines how the seniority of the practitioner affects medical claims ‘The skills exercised by doctors of different seniority and experience in relation to history-taking will be very variable.’ While it is trite law that the standard of care to be expected from a learner driver is the same as for any other driver, …
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Andrew Beck, Andrew Bennett and Gwendoline Davies assess the AIG Europe case and its implications for all those bringing, facing or insuring multiple claims against solicitors ‘The Supreme Court concluded that determining whether matters are related is an acutely fact-sensitive exercise, which requires an application of judgement, and that to try to impose an any …
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Julian Matthews explores a defendant’s liability when there are multiple causes of a given loss ‘While this basis of approach makes clear logical sense, and appears to be wholly in line with the approach of the Court of Appeal, there are significant concerns that the practical working of the approach will result in significant injustice.’ …
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Wills & Trusts Law Reports | September 2016 #162The deceased (J) died on 2 June 2012, a widow with no children or close relatives. On 8 November 2011 J executed a will (the will) drafted by a solicitor (W). She made a number of pecuniary legacies including legacies of £54,000 each in favour of the claimants.
An employee of the defendant, (S), had been J’s financial advisor since 2000. In 2011, prior to executing the will and acting on S’ advice, J formed two trusts in the claimants’ favour to mitigate inheritance tax payable on her death. One was a discretionary trust naming the claimants sole discretionary b...
Scott Allen and Josh Folkard highlight a case brought by disappointed beneficiaries against a financial adviser ‘The judge’s decision that a frustrated beneficiary claim could potentially be advanced by reference to any of the three potential tests for liability in tort could, if applied more widely, introduce uncertainty into what has generally been seen as …
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Wills & Trusts Law Reports | July/August 2016 #161The claim arose from a purported sale of a property to the claimant by a fraudster who purported to be, but was not in fact, the registered owner of the property. By the time the fraud was discovered the whole of the purchase price had been paid by the claimant to the second defendant (the claimant’s conveyancer), by the second defendant to the first defendant (the fraudster’s solicitor) and by the first defendant to an account in Dubai upon the fraudster’s instructions.
The fraudster’s instructions to the first defendant were that the property had been given to him by his father,...
