Martin Zatovkanuk | Soumya Roop Sanyal
Husband holding wife’s power of attorney had no duty to tell her daughter of hospitalizations and death
By Julius Melnitzer | September 23, 2026
A person acting under a power of attorney for personal care owes no duty of care to the incapable grantor’s adult child, the Court of Appeal for Ontario has ruled.
In McNeill v. Phillips, 2026 ONCA 652, released Sept. 15, a panel of Justices Bradley Miller, Gary Trotter and Jill Copeland dismissed Sandra McNeill’s appeal from a Superior Court order striking her claim against Kenneth Phillips.
Phillips was married to McNeill’s mother, but is not McNeill’s father. He held the mother’s power of attorney for personal care. McNeill, who was in her late 50s when her mother died in December 2024, alleged that Phillips failed to tell her about her mother’s hospitalizations and death, did not let her see her mother in the hospital once her mother became incapacitated, and kept her from attending a viewing by refusing to move it to a date she could attend.
She framed the claim in negligence, pleading that Phillips owed her a duty to inform her of her mother’s illness and death.
“My client was the deceased’s only biological child and had a good relationship with her mother,” says Soumya Roop Sanyal of Toronto’s Saachi Law Office PC, counsel for McNeill. “Phillips stonewalled her attempts to see her mother.” MORE . . . .