The Full Court held that an applicant's obligation to make full and frank disclosure of financial circumstances in a family provision claim does not impose a jurisdictional bar requiring dismissal if disclosure falls short of a particular standard; rather, the question is whether the court has sufficient information to form at least a 'broad outline' of the applicant's financial position to enable the evaluative judgment and exercise of discretion. The Court confirmed that under Tasmanian law, s 45 of the Supreme Court Civil Procedure Act 1932 applies to both the jurisdictional question and the discretionary stage of a claim under s 3 of the Testators Family Maintenance Act 1912, incorporating the House v The King standard of review. The provision of $100,000 from an estate of approximately $460,000 was upheld as within the bounds of reasonable discretion, arrived at through a process of instinctive synthesis rather than mathematical calculation.
The full text is available to signed-in members, including the 1 later case that cites this judgment.
1 of the 1 citing case carries a classified treatment. How each court treated it is available to signed-in members.