Estates: The Court of Appeal refuses to apply the doctrine of abuse of rights

In G.B. v. Si. B. (2015 QCCA 1223), the Court of Appeal addressed the question of whether the doctrine of abuse of rights applied to the right to dispose of one’s property by will.

The Deceased disinherited his two daughters and one son. The two daughters claimed that he sexually assaulted them and his son took a neutral position with respect to the allegations. The children sued the estate, alleging that by disinheriting them, their father had exercised his rights abusively and in contravention of Articles 6 and 7 of the Civil Code of Quebec.

The Superior Court dismissed their claim, holding that their father had a right to choose to whom he left his estate, the source of which was a trust that had been established by his grand-father in the 1920s and which gave the beneficiaries the right to choose to whom they left their shares. On the issue of abuse of rights, the trial judge held that even if the evidence showed there may have been sexual abuse, the Deceased’s choice to disinherit 3 of his children did not violate the law or public order. He made the decision several years after the accusations were made and well after the relationship with the 3 children in question had deteriorated. Accordingly, the trial judge found that they were disinherited at least in part because of their poor relationship with their father in the years before his death rather than strictly out of vengeance. The Deceased was therefore not in bad faith.

The Court of Appeal agreed. The Court of Appeal confirmed that the freedom to dispose of one’s property by will is almost unlimited, with few exceptions other than the prohibition against illegal clauses or public order. To derogate from the principle of the freedom to will, which includes the right to revoke previous testamentary dispositions, one would have to find that a law had been violated which was not the case here.
The Court stated :

[47] En d’autres mots, on peut comprendre la conduite des appelants si l’on tient compte du témoignage des deux sœurs. Par contre, cela ne change en rien la liberté qu’avait R… B… de tester comme il le voulait, sans avoir à se justifier. L’état des relations ne devenait qu’une explication, sans devoir être une justification. En d’autres mots, tout comme l’on ne peut forcer quelqu’un à donner à quiconque, on ne peut davantage le forcer à tester (autrement dit à procéder à une donation à cause de mort) en faveur de qui que ce soit.

On the power to appoint (“la faculté d’élire”), the constituting act (the Deceased’s grandfather’s trust) clearly gave the deceased the power to exclude some of his descendants. Since there was nothing in the constituting act or in the Deceased’s will that violated public order or was illegal, he had exercised his discretion appropriately in disinheriting his children.

The Court of Appeal then turned to the question of whether the Deceased had abused his rights. 

The appellants argued that the trial judge erred in finding that their conduct justified their being disinherited because, having been abused, it was impossible for them to have had a good relationship with their father. They also argued that since the trial judge concluded that they had been abused, the only reason that could have motivated their father to disinherit them was vengeance, which was necessarily an abusive and bad faith exercise of his rights.

The Court of Appeal dismissed this argument since the Deceased had no obligation to justify his decision to disinherit them. The Deceased could have, at any time after disinheriting them and prior to his death, put them back in his will but he did not because of the poor relationship. This demonstrated that there was no bad faith.

Even on the standard of the unreasonable exercise of a right, the trial judge’s conclusions of fact (i.e. that the accusations of sexual assault were not the only reason the Deceased disinherited the appellants) meant that the Deceased acted reasonably.

The Court of Appeal nonetheless went on to decide whether the theory of abuse of rights could even apply to the freedom to will and the power to appoint.

The Court cited professor Paul-André Crépeau in Houle c. Banque Canadienne Nationale :

[80]    (…)

Il s’agit essentiellement de reconnaître qu’un droit, quelle qu’en soit la source, ne saurait être absolu. Tout droit a une finalité propre; il est concédé en vue de la satisfaction d’impératifs sociaux ou de besoins économiques et non pas pour l’assouvissement des instincts de vengeance ou de méchanceté. C’est dans cette perspective que l’on doit envisager l’exercice des droits contractuels. Un ordre juridique, pâle reflet de l’ordre moral, doit certes souffrir l’égoïsme; il ne saurait en tout cas tolérer la malice.

The Court of Appeal noted that there was no contractual right in question in the case at bar and that the freedom to will and power to appoint were discretionary in nature. The Houle decision cautioned against applying the doctrine of abuse of rights to discretionary powers. Baudouin, Deslauriers and Moore stated:

[86] […] [U]ne nuance doit également être apportée pour l’exercice, de plus en plus rare de nos jours, d’un droit purement discrétionnaire. A priori ces droits n’étant soumis à aucun contrôle devraient être à l’abri de l’abus de droit. On peut ainsi penser à la liberté illimitée de tester, au droit de demander le partage, de renoncer ou d’accepter une succession ou les bénéfices d’un régime matrimonial. […]

Ainsi défini, le domaine de l’abus des droits est plus restreint qu’il n’apparaît à première vue. Il n’existe donc, à notre avis, que dans l’hypothèse où le détenteur d’un droit subjectif, dont l’exercice n’est pas purement discrétionnaire, cause un préjudice à autrui, en exerçant ce droit sans, pour autant, en dépasser les limites législatives.

The Court concludes :

[91] En somme, la théorie de l’abus de droit impose d’agir de bonne foi et de ne pas utiliser son droit de manière à nuire à autrui. Or, en ce qui a trait à la liberté de tester, comment peut-on agir de manière à nuire à un tiers lorsque ce dernier n’a pas de droit à faire valoir? La notion de préjudice peut difficilement se concevoir lorsque ce préjudice consiste à être privé d’une succession à laquelle on n’a aucun droit, même si l’espoir est présent. Il y aurait « préjudice » dès lors qu’un successible serait exclu de la succession de son parent. Or, il ne peut en être ainsi étant donné la liberté de tester.

[92] Par ailleurs, en ce qui concerne la faculté d’élire, on pourrait peut-être dire que, étant donné la substitution, il y aurait ici plus qu’un simple espoir, vu ce que l’on pourrait appeler un « droit éventuel aux biens substitués » (art. 1235 C.c.Q.). Par contre, en l’espèce, le droit éventuel des appelants ne suffirait pas pour contrecarrer la décision prise par leur père. Sa faculté d’élire et la liberté de choix dont elle est assortie fragilisent d’autant la capacité des appelants d’intervenir dans ce choix, de sorte que leur situation se rapproche bien davantage du simple espoir que d’un droit véritable.

[93] Il ne peut y avoir préjudice dès qu’une personne est exclue. Comment le législateur aurait-il alors pu autoriser, par l’article 1283 C.c.Q., l’exercice d’un tel droit discrétionnaire (« comme il l’entend / as he sees fit ») s’il pouvait toujours être qualifié de « préjudiciable »?