Court of Construction at Work

Question 1

What does the court of construction do?

Answer 1

Interprets what is written and tries to determine what the testator meant

Question 2

Perrin v Morgan

Answer 2

Facts: testator left “to all the monies of which I died possessed”

Ratio: base determination on the circumstances not past case definitions. Avoid intestate.

Question 3

Price (case)

Answer 3

Real estate could be “money”

Question 4

Words defined by testator

Answer 4

Although a word may have an ordinary accepted meaning, T may give it a special meaning in the will. Court may consider surrounding circumstances to determine T’s definition.

Question 5

Re Helliwell

Answer 5

Facts: Testator used the term nephew to refer to an illegitimate child he didn’t know was IL but expressly included other IL children

Ratio: example of testator making a word his own and looking to surrounding circumstances

Question 6

Terms of Art

Answer 6

Certain expressions have acquired a technical meaning in law (ex: personal property). Recently courts have been willing to assign other meaning to these words if T uses them differently

Question 7

Re Cook (1948)

Answer 7

Facts: bequeather personal estate but did not deal with real estate. Term of art, personal estate= anything but real estate.

Ratio: court supposed she meant the term of art, didn’t include real estate. Old case that would likely be decided differently today.

Question 8

Avoidance of partial intestacies

Answer 8

• Important but not always achievable

- Problem with partial intestacy is they can go a long time, issue with determining next of kin