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FEATURE 32 www.lawtimesnews.com done. The woman's other two sons brought the claim against their brother and his fam- ily who benefited from the transactions, using the argument of unconscionable procure- ment. The two standards to trigger the doc- trine were met. FOCUS ON WILLS, TRUSTS & ESTATES A geriatric psychiatrist testified that the elderly mother was capable of understanding and making these gifts, but the court stated that the opinion of the doctor "goes to the question of whether the gift was valid but does not determine the question of whether it is voidable under the doctrine of unconscio- nable procurement." The court reviewed existing case law and the relevant sections of John Poyser's book Capacity and Undue Influence in considering the case. The psychiatrist's capacity assess- ment was accepted where he had been pro- vided with a copy of the documentation relat- ing to the monetary gifts, but where he did not have relevant documentation, the court stated his testimony "could not be relied upon to rebut the presumption of unconscionable procurement that arose under the circum- stances where he was missing evidence." Those transactions without documentation — totalling approximately $8 million — were set aside and declared void, as "the elderly mother did not have a full appreciation of the facts underlying the rationale of the trans- action and therefore her intent was flawed," Whaley states. Although it was recently announced that the decision is being appealed, it is only on the mutual wills doctrine aspect of it — likely because the mother in the case can simply regift the money to her son that was declared void through use of the doctrine of uncon- scionable procurement, this time ensuring there is proper documentation. "It appears on the face of it … the doctrine of unconscionable procurement has been revived — that's really cool," Whaley adds. "It's a new tool to put in our tool box for chal- lenging gifts." Poyser, a senior lawyer at WEL, says the lawyers in Gefen got a copy of his book on equitable doctrines, read it over and decided that, "dusty as it was, the doctrine of uncon- scionable procurement could be dusted off and used as the right tool to set aside those gifts and other transactions." The doctrine was popular "100-plus years