{"id":40634,"date":"2025-10-29T15:10:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T19:10:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.millerthomson.com\/?post_type=deals-cases&#038;p=40634"},"modified":"2025-10-29T15:10:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T19:10:14","slug":"court-upholds-equal-family-distribution-under-ambiguous-will-clause","status":"publish","type":"deals-cases","link":"https:\/\/www.millerthomson.com\/en\/deals-cases\/court-upholds-equal-family-distribution-under-ambiguous-will-clause\/","title":{"rendered":"Court Upholds Equal Family Distribution Under Ambiguous Will Clause"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>In <em>Pierce v. Oswald<\/em>, Peter Askew and Joshua Cabral Cardoso of Miller Thomson LLP acted for an estate trustee in an application seeking the Court\u2019s opinion, advice, and direction regarding the interpretation of an ambiguous residue clause in the Deceased\u2019s Will. The issue was whether the residue should be distributed equally among the Deceased\u2019s five siblings\u2019 families, passing to their issue <em>per stirpes<\/em>, or whether it should pass entirely to the sole surviving sibling (and subsequently to her estate), as the other siblings had predeceased the Deceased.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Applying the \u201carmchair rule,\u201d the Court held that the residue was to be distributed equally among the five siblings\u2019 families <em>per stirpes<\/em>, with the share of any predeceased sibling passing to their issue. The Court found that the use of the term <em>per stirpes<\/em> reflected the Deceased\u2019s intention to treat each sibling\u2019s family equally and to provide for the surviving issue of any predeceased sibling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Court also noted that, while not determinative in this case, the anti-lapse provisions of the <em>Succession Law Reform Act<\/em> would have produced the same result.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"template":"","class_list":["post-40634","deals-cases","type-deals-cases","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Court Upholds Equal Family Distribution Under Ambiguous Will Clause | Miller Thomson<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.millerthomson.com\/en\/deals-cases\/court-upholds-equal-family-distribution-under-ambiguous-will-clause\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Court Upholds Equal Family Distribution Under Ambiguous Will Clause | Miller Thomson\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In Pierce v. Oswald, Peter Askew and Joshua Cabral Cardoso of Miller Thomson LLP acted for an estate trustee in an application seeking the Court\u2019s opinion, advice, and direction regarding the interpretation of an ambiguous residue clause in the Deceased\u2019s Will. 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Oswald, Peter Askew and Joshua Cabral Cardoso of Miller Thomson LLP acted for an estate trustee in an application seeking the Court\u2019s opinion, advice, and direction regarding the interpretation of an ambiguous residue clause in the Deceased\u2019s Will. 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