Can a will of an Indian be declared void in whole or part?
British Columbia, Canada
The following excerpt is from Gottfriedson Estate v Sasakamoose, 2021 BCSC 895 (CanLII):
Section 46(1)(e) of the Act provides that the Minister may declare the will of an Indian to be void in whole or in part, if the terms of the will are so vague, uncertain, or capricious that proper administration and equitable distribution of the estate of the deceased would be difficult or impossible to carry out in accordance with the Act. In interpreting and applying the provisions of the Act, the court may have “recourse to the common law and seek assistance from judicial precedents considering testamentary dispositions by non-Indian persons”: Johnson v. Pelkey, [1997] B.C.J. No. 1290 at para.104 (S.C.).
"The most advanced legal research software ever built."
The above passage should not be considered legal advice. Reliable answers to complex legal questions require comprehensive research memos. To learn more visit www.alexi.com.
Other Questions
Can the Province avoid liability in whole or part because of factual circumstances in the background of causation where those circumstances are of a non-tortious nature? (British Columbia, Canada)
If a contract is partly written and partly oral, can the parol evidence rule apply? (British Columbia, Canada)
Does the parol evidence rule preclude evidence of the oral part of an agreement that is partly in writing? (British Columbia, Canada)
What is the test for admitting evidence of a declarant as a declaration of contemporaneous physical sensation? (British Columbia, Canada)
What is the difference between an explicit declaration of mind and statements that permit inference as to the declarant's state of mind? (British Columbia, Canada)
Can a notice of civil claim be struck in whole or in part? (British Columbia, Canada)
Is there an alternative argument that the application of a law of general application to a particular group of Indians in a particular activity is legislation in their Indian-ness? (British Columbia, Canada)
When determining responsibility for the publication of an opinion by the editor of a news website, does the trier of fact have to consider the whole publication as a whole? (British Columbia, Canada)
What is the test for declaring a declaration of time as of the essence in a real estate transaction? (British Columbia, Canada)
What is the effect of the misplacement of paragraph 3 in part 3 rather than part 1 of the ANoCC? (British Columbia, Canada)
