Case information

None.

Case summaries are prepared by the Office of the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Canada (Law Branch). Please note that summaries are not provided to the Judges of the Court. They are placed on the Court file and website for information purposes only.

Successions – Wills – Reconstitution – Photocopy of will naming respondent as sole beneficiary – Superior Court finding that proof of contents, origin and regularity of will conclusive and unequivocal and finding no evidence that will revoked – Whether Court of Appeal should have allowed appeal.

The applicant, Ms. Fleischer, is the daughter of the late Dr. Isidore Fleischer, a mathematics professor who died in Montréal on March 24, 2001. On June 4, 1982, Dr. Fleischer signed a handwritten will in the presence of two colleagues who then added their signatures as witnesses. This will named the respondent, the American Mathematical Society (AMS), sole beneficiary of Dr. Fleischer.

After her father’s death, Ms. Fleischer filed an application for letters of verification under art. 615 C.C.Q., since some of the deceased’s property was situated outside Quebec. In a distinct action, the AMS applied to have the will probated under art. 887 ff. of the Code of civil procedure, R.S.Q., c. C-25, but after discovering that it only had a photocopy of the will, it sought to have the will reconstituted pursuant to art. 774 C.C.Q. Ms. Fleischer alleged that her father had tacitly revoked his will in 2009 by transferring his savings, held in trust for AMS, to an account opened in his name alone and, therefore, had died ab intestate.

The Superior Court granted the AMS’s action in reconstitution and dismissed the application for letters of verification. On motion, the Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal.