She Inherits $2M, a "Friend" Takes It: The Court of Appeal Clears the Notary

A man dies and leaves more than two million dollars to his companion of twenty years. At the funeral, a friend of the deceased offers to help her “put the money out of reach” of the deceased’s daughters. Within a year, he controlled almost all of it.

Litvack c. Matsuba (Estate of Myers), 2026 QCCA 1147, rendered on 25 August 2026 by the Québec Court of Appeal, is the kind of case that should be assigned reading in notarial ethics courses — and in courses on causation.

It ends with two opposite outcomes: the manipulator’s appeal is dismissed with costs, and the appeal of the notary and of the Chambre des notaires’ insurance fund is allowed with costs. In other words, the victim keeps her judgment against the man who defrauded her, but loses the award she had obtained against the notary.

The facts: fear, then manipulation

In January 2018, Mr. Ben Myers dies. He leaves all of his property — more than two million dollars — to Ms. Kiyoko Matsuba, with whom he had lived for the last twenty years of his life. They were not married.

Ms. Matsuba is devastated and overwhelmed. Her relationship with the deceased’s daughters had been turbulent even before his death; she felt scorned and pushed aside. When she learns she will inherit the entire estate, she begins to fear a will challenge that would freeze the funds and leave her without money to pay her bills. Her fears intensify when, in late March 2018, she receives an email from one of the daughters questioning the will’s validity.

It is in that context that Mr. Neil Floyd appears — a friend of the deceased whom she meets at the funeral, and who offers to help her put the money out of reach.

The trial judge found that Floyd amplified the risk of estate litigation to the point of persuading Ms. Matsuba that it could jeopardize her residency status, and convinced her she would be unable to defend herself given her limited command of English. He conveyed inaccurate information, distorted facts and lied — falsely claiming, among other things, to hold a doctorate from McGill University.

A power of attorney two notaries refused to notarize

This detail is striking, and it should have served as an alarm.

In early February 2018, Floyd arranges a meeting with a first notary to have a general power of attorney drawn up in his favour. That notary would testify at trial that Floyd led the discussion and that Ms. Matsuba appeared overwhelmed. Unable to determine what her wishes truly were, he refused to act in the file.

Two weeks later, Floyd arranges a meeting with a second notary. Again, Floyd leads the discussion. This notary is uncomfortable enough to insist on meeting Ms. Matsuba privately to explain the risks of a general power of attorney in Floyd’s favour. Emotional, Ms. Matsuba confides that she does not feel able to handle the liquidation of the estate and fears being deprived of her inheritance. The notary prepares the power of attorney, but refuses to notarize it, limiting herself to administering the oath.

The power of attorney gives Floyd near-unlimited authority: to open the estate account, to carry out and approve any banking transaction on Ms. Matsuba’s behalf, to make any decision concerning the deceased’s investments, to cash them in or reinvest them.

Nullity for fraud: vitiated consent

The trial judge declared the power of attorney void on several grounds. One rested on section 48 of the Charter of human rights and freedoms, which protects aged or handicapped persons against every form of exploitation: the judge found that Ms. Matsuba, 62 years old, socially isolated, in an altered cognitive state and with limited financial means, was an “aged person” who had been exploited.

The Court of Appeal deliberately declines to decide that question — more on this below. It confirms the nullity on another basis, more classical and just as solid: fraud (dol).

Fraud, in plain terms, is the deceptive manoeuvre that leads someone to consent to what they would not otherwise have accepted. Article 1401 of the Civil Code of Québec provides that consent so vitiated allows the act to be annulled. Here, Floyd “exerted his influence to lead Matsuba to wrongly believe that the power of attorney was a necessary tool to ‘protect’ the estate’s assets, thereby vitiating her consent.”

Nullity triggers restitution of prestations (art. 1422 C.C.Q.): Floyd must return the entirety of the sums transferred into his accounts.

The “gift letter” that was no gift

On 10 August 2018, Ms. Matsuba signed a letter drafted by Floyd himself, in which she declared that she was voluntarily transferring to him a sum — the amount undisclosed — as a “gift,” in return for all the help and support he had given her since her partner’s death. When she later asked him to return the money, he refused on the ground that she could not revoke the gift.

Floyd’s own counsel acknowledged at the appeal hearing that the transfers were intended to shield the funds from possible claims by the deceased’s daughters, and that the idea was to return them to Ms. Matsuba once the risk had passed. That admission is devastating for the gift theory: if the shared intention was that the money would come back, there was no intention to give.

The judge found that Ms. Matsuba “was led to believe that the Gift Letter was another strategy intended to protect her,” and that her true objective was not to transfer the entirety of the assets. The letter is void, “since it was obtained through deceptive tactics.”

Floyd also challenged the quantum, with arguments the Court dismisses bluntly: a baseball card collection said to account for $400,000 of the building’s sale price — though he had denied owning such a collection; two cash payments of $50,000 and $100,000 on which his testimony was “both inconsistent and unreliable”; and a missing Patek Philippe watch, which the judge had arbitrarily valued at $10,000 “even though it is likely worth more.”

One point of appellate procedure deserves emphasis, because it sealed Floyd’s fate: he chose not to file the transcripts of the trial testimony. The Court of Appeal cannot substitute its assessment of the evidence for the trial judge’s if it does not have access to that evidence. Without a complete record, findings of fact are practically unassailable. Attacking a factual finding without producing the transcripts is fighting with your hands tied.

The notary committed a fault — the question lay elsewhere

The proceeds of the sale of the estate’s building, $1,250,444.25, were paid directly into Floyd’s account by the instrumenting notary, Me Irwin Litvack.

That the notary committed a fault was never contested on appeal. The Regulation respecting the accounting and standards of professional practice of notaries and the Chambre des notaires’ guidelines are clear: the notary could not transfer the funds to a third party, even at his client’s request. The trial judge added that the most elementary prudence would have called for inquiring into the nature of the relationship between Ms. Matsuba and Floyd, rather than simply assuming he was a friend. “Nothing indicates that Litvack asked a single question; his total inaction and carelessness make his conduct negligent.”

The real question was causation.

In Québec civil law, it is not enough that a fault could have caused the damage. The injury must be the logical, direct and immediate consequence of the fault. The case law generally applies the theory of adequate causation: only causes that objectively made the injury possible are retained, to the exclusion of mere occasions.

The trial judge concluded that the causa causans — the true cause — of the injury was Floyd’s conduct, not the notary’s fault. His reasoning is persuasive: both before and after the April 2018 transaction, Ms. Matsuba systematically transferred all the estate’s liquid assets to Floyd. Between May and September 2018, more than $800,000 took that route. She even sold some of the shares herself, with the proceeds then deposited into Floyd’s accounts. In all likelihood, the building’s sale proceeds would have ended up in Floyd’s account shortly after the transaction, regardless of the notary’s fault.

Fault is not liability: the error of law corrected

Here lies the core of the judgment and its clearest contribution to the law.

Having found no causal link, the trial judge nonetheless continued his analysis and declared this “a classic example of in solidum liability.” He ordered Floyd, the notary and the Fund to pay $1,250,444.25 in solidum, while apportioning liability at 100% to Floyd and 0% to the notary.

The Court of Appeal writes, respectfully but unambiguously, that the judge “confuses fault and liability here, and in doing so commits an error of law.” Having concluded that the notary was not liable for want of causation, he could not then declare him solidarily liable. Reducing his share to 0% — which he could have done had he found him liable — changes nothing about the inescapable conclusion that he was not.

The distinction is not theoretical. An in solidum award, even with a 0% apportionment, obliges the co-debtor to pay the creditor in full, and then to seek recovery from the other. In practice, the Chambre des notaires’ insurance fund would have paid $1.25M and then had to try to recover it from a man whose accounts were frozen. The difference between 0% liability and no liability at all is over a million dollars.

Result: the claims against the notary and the Fund are dismissed, without costs at trial but with costs on appeal. Floyd remains ordered to pay $2,072,886.17 with interest and the additional indemnity from 27 January 2019 (paragraph [9] of the judgment, which summarizes the trial decision, gives $2,071,886.17; the $1,000 discrepancy appears to be a typographical slip, and the figure in the disposition governs), and the $75,000 in moral damages and $50,000 in punitive damages stand.

A question left open: at 62, are you an “aged person”?

Floyd argued that a 62-year-old cannot be considered an “aged person” within the meaning of section 48 of the Québec Charter. The Court of Appeal writes that there is no need to decide the question here, since the nullity rests in any event on fraud.

That is a missed opportunity, but an understandable caution. The question therefore remains open, and it is far from academic: section 48 offers a standalone protection against exploitation, with its own evidentiary and remedial regime. Some counsel argue the notion must be assessed in concreto, by reference to actual vulnerability rather than a chronological threshold; others see a risk of stretching indefinitely a protection designed for a specific group. The judgment does not settle it — but it upholds the punitive damages, notably because Floyd never contested the violations of the rights to dignity, honour and free disposition of property (ss. 4 and 6 of the Charter), which suffice on their own to support them.

Why this case stands out

Because the scheme is dismayingly ordinary. This is no sophisticated financial engineering: a bereavement, a legitimate fear of family litigation, an isolated person with limited command of the language, and someone who presents himself as the solution. The judge notes that the transfers were to be made “gradually so as not to appear suspicious” and that she was to “keep a modest sum in her own account.” That is the vocabulary of fraud.

Because it also shows that a diligent professional can save a file — or miss it entirely. Two notaries saw the problem: one refused to act at all, the other refused to notarize the act. A third asked no questions. The Court of Appeal clears him, but only because the harm would have occurred anyway. That is an acquittal on causation, not a certificate of good conduct. On the ethical plane, the fault remains entire.

And because it recalls an uncomfortable reality of civil liability: the best-protected victim is not the one who suffered the greatest wrong, but the one who can show that a solvent defendant’s fault actually caused the injury. Here, the evidence that Ms. Matsuba transferred everything to Floyd in any event — evidence led to establish the scale of the manipulation — turned against her on the question of the notary’s liability.

Key takeaways

A general power of attorney is not a favour. It hands someone control of your patrimony. If a professional refuses to notarize it, that is not bureaucratic friction: it is a warning. Take the time to consult an independent lawyer, alone, without the person accompanying you.

“Putting the money out of reach” is almost always bad advice. Transferring your assets into a third party’s account to shield them from potential litigation protects nothing: it creates a far greater risk than the one it is meant to avoid, and it may also be set up against your creditors. The right answer to a threatened will challenge is a lawyer, not a helpful friend.

For professionals. Never pay transaction proceeds into a third party’s account, even on the client’s written instructions. And when a third party is leading the discussion, the client appears overwhelmed, and you are asked to grant broad powers in that third party’s favour, the only defensible course is to ask questions, meet the client alone, and record what you did.

For litigators. Two reminders. First, a proven professional fault is worth nothing without causation: you must build the evidence of what would have happened but for the fault, not merely the evidence of the fault. Second, if you attack findings of fact on appeal, file the transcripts. Without them, the Court of Appeal can do nothing for you.

She Inherits $2M, a “Friend” Takes It: The Court of Appeal Clears the Notary