Unconscionable Conduct and Dependants Support
In this video, two senior lawyers address a colleague's innovative approach on how to defend a claim for support by a child who mistreated their parent.
Will a Dependant be Denied Support for Misconduct?
Ontario’s courts and legislature offer an avenue for dependants to challenge how the estate of the deceased is distributed. While a testator generally has the right to dictate what happens to his/her assets upon death, certain relationships create responsibilities that limit this testamentary freedom, and a court might order that the estate pay the dependant support from the estate, over and above what the testator had intended.But what happens if the dependant mistreated the testator or, in the most egregious cases, caused the testator’s death?
Urgent Interim Dependant Support Motions
In this blog, I discuss the framework for Motions for interim Dependant support and compare and contrast two Court decisions to assist the reader to better understand under which circumstances a Court might be more likely to grant interim Dependant support.
For the Purposes of Inheritance Can a Person Have More Than One Spouse?
The lawyers discuss the circumstance where the deceased had a relationship with someone outside of their marriage who wants her "fair" share of the inheritance. The video discusses the second "wife's" entitlement under the Succession Law Reform Act and case law.
Has the Doctrine of Fraudulent Concealment Been Expanded?
On January 5, 2017 Ontario’s Court of Appeal came out with a decision which is of great interest to those dealing with limitation periods, the responsibility of trustees to creditors, and the defence of fraudulent concealment.
Entitlement to Support Despite Prenuptial Agreement
When wealthy people marry, their lawyers often advise them to ensure that their fiancé signs a prenuptial agreement. The goal is to protect the wealthy person’s family in case, the marriage breaks up and/or the wealthy spouse dies. So, if the couple each hire good lawyers and the prenuptial contract clearly spells out their agreement, is that ‘pre-nup’ still open to challenge? Maybe. Let’s look at the law.
Evidence in dependant’s relief claims –“…by a very thin margin…”
When an elderly person initiates a new relationship it can sometimes plant the seeds of litigation. Perhaps the elderly person needs a caregiver. Or maybe they strike up a friendship with a contemporary for companionship. Perchance, in an effort to reduce expenses, they take on boarders or tenants. But at death, those seeds can bloom into full-fledged litigation. The adult children of the elderly person might be caught off guard when the caregiver/companion or tenant/boarder claims to be a common law spouse. That is exactly what happened in Prelorentzos v. Havaris.1 For those involved in this type of litigation, the case is a worthwhile read on the issue of how the court goes about reviewing and weighing the evidence presented.
Footnotes
- 2015 ONSC 2844. This case is available on-line at . For another interesting case commentary on this case, see Joanne Hwang’s blog (of Whaley Estate Litigation) at ↵
The Rights of the Unborn to support under Ontario’s Succession Law Reform Act
Dagg v. Cameron is one of those cases that law school professors use to challenge the way you think. Stephen Cameron was a 48 year old guy living with Evangeline who was 8 months pregnant with his baby. Tragedy struck and Stephen died. The baby was born after Stephen’s death. What made things interesting was that there was no will.
Should Divorce Revoke The Beneficiary Designation In An Insurance Policy?
In Ontario, when a person gets divorced and then dies his/her bequest in their will to the former spouse is revoked. The law reads the will as if the former spouse died first. So what happens when someone owned an insurance policy that designated the former spouse as the beneficiary – or what about the RRSP? Does divorce automatically revoke those designations?
“…there is nothing that precludes … being in a spousal relationship with more than one person at a time…”
The title of this article is an excerpt from Justice LaForme’s dissent, in an Ontario’s Court of Appeal decision dealing with the multiple spouse conundrum in the context of Ontario’s Pensions Benefits Act. This is not an endorsement of bigamy. It is addressing a growing social phenomenon.