Chalik v Chalik

[2025] NSWCA 136

NSW Court of Appeal

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Interrogate

Catchwords

1. Succession
2. › Wills
3. › Testamentary capacity
4. › Application of Banks v Goodfellow test
5. › Significance of clinical records recording cognitive defects before and after execution of will
6. › Whether solicitor's evidence determinative of capacity
7. › Whether s 19(2) of Succession Act 2006 (NSW) supplants common law test
8. › Succession Act 2006 (NSW), ss 18, 19
1. Appeal
2. › Challenge to findings of fact
3. › Credit-based findings
4. › Advantages of trial judge
5. › Whether findings glaringly improbable or contrary to compelling inferences
6. › Fox v Percy (2003) 214 CLR 118
1. Practice and Procedure
2. › Unrepresented litigants
3. › Extent of court's obligation to assist
4. › Whether court has obligation to ensure unrepresented party does not fail to claim rights
5. › Whether duty extends to advising on how rights should be exercised
1. Practice and Procedure
2. › Pleadings
3. › Departure from pleadings
4. › Whether party may complain on appeal of departure not protested at trial

Quick Take

A court's duty to an unrepresented litigant does not extend to an 'obligation to ensure' that the litigant does not fail to claim rights or put forward legal arguments; the unreasonable rejection of offers of compromise should not be substantially discounted by reference to a notional 'buffer for contingencies' identified in a family provision assessment.