My June 2017 blog described that most seniors appoint a continuing power of attorney for property (CPOAP), partly to avoid having the Office of the Public Guardian and Trustee (OPG&T) assume the role of statutory guardian of property under the Substitute Decisions Act (SDA) or the Mental Health Act (MHA)…
Halloween is right around the corner, so today’s blog post is taking an ominous turn. Informal Reader Poll: What’s scarier? a) A horror movie that’s been remade three times b) Having to remake a client’s will for the third time Now to the fun stuff….. There’s a general principle in…
Undue influence results in benefits to a beneficiary/donee which would not have occurred except for the undue influence imposed by the beneficiary/donee upon the testator/donor. Undue influence can be conceptualized into two distinct types: (1) “actual” undue influence and (2) “presumed” undue influence. Actual undue influence is concerned with coercive…
Section 4(1) of the Health Care Consent Act (HCCA) sets out a two-part test for determining whether a person has the capacity to consent to medical treatment, to be admitted to a care facility, or to receive a personal assistive service/device: Is the person able to understand information relevant to…
In the recent decision of Dujardin v. Dujardin, 2018 ONCA 597, the Court of Appeal for Ontario considered the validity of wills executed by a testator suffering from chronic alcoholism. Background: Jack and Noel Dujardin (“Jack” and “Noel”) were brothers who jointly owned a farm property that had been in…
This blog was written by Ronald Neal, student-at-law at de VRIES LITIGATION LLP. Even those with the “right stuff” are not immune to elder abuse. Such is the apparent case with Buzz Aldrin, a retired astronaut, lunar module pilot, and engineer who is now finding himself in the midst of…
In 2015, the Supreme Court of Canada held that the ban on Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) was unconstitutional (for a summary of the decision, click here). However, MAiD is not available to all persons; to qualify, a person requesting MAiD must have a grievous and irremediable medical condition including…
The “rule of law” is a defining feature of western democracies. Briefly described, it is the insistence that all government action be based in law, and is contrasted with acts of tyranny, dictatorship, and arbitrary exercises of power. The central role that the rule of law plays in Canadian society…
All long-term care homes in Ontario are governed by one piece of legislation: the Long-Term Care Homes Act, 2007 (LTCHA) designed to help ensure that residents of long-term care homes receive safe, consistent, high-quality resident-centred care. The Ontario Regulation 79/10 (Regulation) is made under the LTCHA and provides additional requirements….
Delirium is one of the 3 big ‘D’s that we see with our older clients. The other ‘D’’s are dementia and depression but I suppose the biggest ‘D’ out there is death. I recently came across a Reader’s Digest article while waiting at a doctor’s office that had been reprinted…
