{"id":26389,"date":"2025-07-28T02:12:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-28T02:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/26389\/"},"modified":"2025-07-28T02:12:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-28T02:12:08","slug":"eva-marie-easton-left-her-1m-estate-to-the-sydney-opera-house-trust-her-friend-fought-it-in-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/26389\/","title":{"rendered":"Eva Marie Easton left her $1m estate to the Sydney Opera House Trust. Her friend fought it in court"},"content":{"rendered":"

Peacock helped manage Easton\u2019s finances and other decisions under a power of attorney and enduring guardianship, but the arrangement ended in 2020 after the pair had a falling out at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

The court heard Peacock was unable to visit Easton for reasons including her lack of flu vaccination. Easton was angry and executed a new will in November 2020, leaving everything to the Opera House Trust. Peacock gave evidence that the pair resumed communication in December.<\/p>\n

After Easton\u2019s death, her executor launched court proceedings, seeking orders confirming the validity of the 2020 will and permitting him to distribute the estate.<\/p>\n

But Peacock argued Easton lacked capacity to make the 2020 will because of cognitive impairment. She sought orders that favoured the 2019 will.<\/p>\n

Hmelnitsky rejected Peacock\u2019s arguments. He found the 2020 will was valid. The estate was estimated at about $1 million, he said in a later decision<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The judge accepted expert medical evidence that Easton\u2019s \u201ccapacity to weigh up claims of potential beneficiaries was affected by cognitive impairment\u201d, but did not accept she \u201clacked that capacity altogether\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 2020 will was about as straightforward as could be. Disinheriting Mrs Peacock was the very thing \u2013 the only thing \u2013 she wanted to achieve,\u201d Hmelnitsky said.<\/p>\n

Peacock challenged that decision in NSW\u2019s highest appeal court and lost.<\/p>\n

In a decision this month<\/a>, Court of Appeal President Julie Ward, with whom Justices Christine Adamson and Michael Ball agreed, said the law did not require that a will-maker \u201cact rationally in the disposition of his or her estate: it requires only that [they] … be able to reason or weigh up the claims on the estate\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ward said a judge was \u201cnot bound to accept expert evidence\u201d \u2013 in this case, the medical evidence.<\/p>\n

Hmelnitsky weighed all the evidence and found Easton understood the significance of making a will; knew what she owned; understood her previous will left everything to Peacock; and \u201cconsistently voiced her desire\u201d to disinherit her. The court found no error in his reasoning.<\/p>\n

HWL Ebsworth partner Guy Moloney, an expert in wills and estates litigation, said cases examining the capacity of a person to make a will involved a \u201creally intense zeroing in on a person\u2019s capacity\u201d at the time the will was made.<\/p>\n

Generally, it involved \u201ctwo kinds of evidence\u201d: the evidence of \u201clay observers\u201d, or people who knew the person who made the will \u201cin their day-to-day life\u201d, and expert medical evidence that was either contemporaneous or retrospective.<\/p>\n

People \u201cfrom any orbit of their life\u201d could give evidence about behaviours they observed in the will-maker that might \u201csignal a lack [or otherwise] of ability to function to a degree that would be required to make a will\u201d, Moloney said.<\/p>\n

There was retrospective medical evidence in this case from a respected expert, jointly appointed by the parties, who had not met Easton but who assessed the evidence after her death and opined she likely lacked capacity because of cognitive impairment.<\/p>\n

However, Moloney said that the evidence from people who knew Easton, about her behaviours at the time she made the will, persuaded the judge she did have the capacity to make it.<\/p>\n

This included a nursing home occupational therapist, who said Easton told her \u201con no less than about 20 occasions\u201d in late 2020 that she did not want Peacock to inherit anything.<\/p>\n

Start the day with a summary of the day\u2019s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Peacock helped manage Easton\u2019s finances and other decisions under a power of attorney and enduring guardianship, but the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26390,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[64,63,99,186,184,185],"class_list":{"0":"post-26389","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-finance","12":"tag-personal-finance","13":"tag-personalfinance"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}