All About Estates
By Anna Chen
September 23rd, 2025
In What Circumstances Can an Attorney for Personal Care Restrict Visitors from Visiting an Incapacitated Person in a Long-Term Care Home?
This was the question addressed in the recent decision Orr v Orr, 2025 ONSC 4986.
82-year-old William Orr (“Bill”) was diagnosed with advanced Alzheimer’s Disease and moved into a secure ward at McCormick Home in London, Ontario. His capacity to manage personal care was put into dispute in the application. The applicant was Bill’s wife, Gwen, and Bill’s attorney for property and personal care.
In addition to the issue of capacity, Gwen also sought orders to restrict the couple’s two children Alison and Nathan from visiting Bill at the long-term care home.
In determining the issue of restricting visits of Alison and Nathan, the court started by stating that the Substitute Decisions Act imposes on every attorney important duties aimed at fostering an incapacitated person’s independence and autonomy while protecting their best interests. The act also requires a guardian to make decisions in accordance with wishes or instructions of the incapable person, as expressed while the person was still capable.
Ultimately, the court found that Bill was capable of accepting the visit from Alison and Nathan on the date that they visited (August 28, 2023), but given Gwen’s own personal animus toward Alison and Nathan, the court made directions providing Alison with prescribed visiting time with Bill so as to limit contact and potential for conflict between Gwen and Alison while in Bill’s presence.
In reaching the above conclusion the court:
- found that although Bill was angry at his children from 2019 to 2021, and did express to several people to the effect that he did not want to ever see his children again, he remained open to communications with his children and evidence showed he had a reconciliation with Alison in 2022. There is also no evidence that after 2022 Bill repeated his desire to never see his children again;
- held that the onus was on Gwen to rebut the presumption of capacity on a balance of probabilities and she did not present cogent evidence to rebut the presumption that Bill had the capacity to decide to see Alison and Nathan on August 28, 2023;
- rejected Gwen’s argument that it was contrary to Bill’s best interests for him to be visited by the children. Gwen relied on a geriatric specialist’s report in which the specialist opined that people with severe dementia can still have awareness of people linked to past negative events and visits from the children may have a negative effect on Bill if he was able to make the link between the children and the past trauma associated with them. The specialist further opined that it is quite possible that the negative events from 2019 contributed to Bill’s cognitive decline.
