What is the liability of a solicitor to a third party for the improper or nonexecution of a will?
British Columbia, Canada
The following excerpt is from Smolinski v. Mitchell, 1995 CanLII 1545 (BC SC):
46 For some years, the leading English authority on the issue of the liability of a solicitor to a third party disappointed beneficiary for the improper or non-execution of a will was Ross v. Caunters, [1979] 3 All E.R. 580, [1980] 1 Ch. D. 297. In that case Megarry V.C. described the issue this way at 302: In broad terms, the question is whether the solicitors who prepared a will are liable to a beneficiary under it if through their negligence the gift to the beneficiary is void. The solicitors are liable, of course, to the testator or his estate for a breach of the duty that they owed to him, though as he suffered no financial loss it seems that his estate could recover no more than nominal damages.
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