Capacity for a will: The Banks test

By Kim Gale and Matthew McEnery ( October 31, 2019, 8:47 AM EDT) -- The test for testamentary capacity was established in Banks v. Goodfellow L.R., [1870] C.C.S. NO. 69, and has survived until the present day. While the case has endured as the benchmark of testamentary capacity, much due to the judicial foresight of Chief Justice Alexander James Edmund Cockburn, it has not been without criticism. It is hard to imagine Justice Cockburn foreseeing the depth of medical research into diseases such as Alzheimer’s, which we now rely upon in the present day, but the considerations he included in his test remain....