In what circumstances will solicitors be liable to beneficiaries who, as a result of their negligence, have failed to receive the benefit intended by the testator?
British Columbia, Canada
The following excerpt is from Smolinski v. Mitchell, 1995 CanLII 1545 (BC SC):
57 Lord Goff of Chieveley said the issue was whether in such cases solicitors are liable to the intended beneficiaries who, as a result of the solicitors' negligence, have failed to receive the benefit intended by the testator. He noted that although Ross v. Caunters was generally welcomed by academic writers and, as far as he knew, had created no serious problems in practice since it was decided 15 years earlier, nevertheless the case had been recognized to raise difficulties of a conceptual nature resulting in an uneasy accommodation of the decision within the ordinary principles of the law of obligations.
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