Starr v Miller

• 1. Succession
  2. › Contested probate
  3. › Testamentary capacity
  4. › Alzheimer's disease
  5. › Whether deceased had testamentary capacity at time of giving instructions and executing will
  6. › Banks v Goodfellow criteria
  7. › Weight of contemporaneous documentary evidence versus retrospective medical opinion
• 1. Succession
  2. › Contested probate
  3. › Knowledge and approval of contents of will
  4. › Whether suspicious circumstances existed
  5. › Whether reading of will aloud sufficient basis for inferring knowledge and approval
  6. › Whether beneficiary's involvement in preparation constituted suspicious circumstances
• 1. Succession
  2. › Contested probate
  3. › Construction of testator's statements
  4. › Whether deceased's statement about not wanting daughter to receive money referred to testamentary gift or unrelated dispute
• 1. Evidence
  2. › Weight of evidence
  3. › Contemporaneous documentary evidence preferred over retrospective expert opinion and faded recollection in cross-examination
  4. › Jones v Dunkel inference
  5. › Whether failure to call witness gave rise to adverse inference

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