In Canada, in addition to the fact that two people in a marital relationship must be spouses, the definition of spouse in many Acts includes two people who have cohabited for a certain period of time in a marriage-like relationship. The length of time required for cohabitation varies under different Acts.
After the death of Mr. Y, a wealthy man, a claim by the mother of one of Mr. Y's five children (court code name Mother 1 (M1)), who claimed to be Mr. Y's spouse, for a preferential share of his estate, was rejected by the court, which ruled that M1 was not a spouse to Mr. Y. This meant that M1 would not be able to claim a preferential share of Mr. Y's estate as Mr. Y's spouse. This meant that M1 would not be able to receive half of Mr. Y's estate first as his spouse.
According to court documents, M1 claimed that she and Mr. Y were spouses, and the other original claimant (court code Mother 2, or M2), who claimed to be Mr. Y's spouse, withdrew her claim during the trial. As a result, the determination of M1's identity became the focus of this estate contest.
Mr. Y's estate was estimated to be in the range of C$7 million to C$21 million. If M1 is determined to be Mr. Y's spouse, she has the first right of division of the estate and receives half of the estate first; however, if she is not considered to be a spouse, the estate will be divided among Mr. Y's children, who have five different mothers.
So, how is âspouseâ defined from a legal point of view?
Adele Sun, a senior barrister, said that in Canada, in addition to the fact that two people who are in a marriage must be spouses, in many bills, the definition of spouse also includes two people who have been cohabiting for a certain period of time in a marriage-like relationship. The length of time required for cohabitation varies under different Acts. For example, under the BC Wills, Estates and Inheritance Act, under which M1 is based, the cohabitation requirement is at least two years; under the federal Income Tax Act, it's one year; and under the BC Employment and Assistance Act, it's only three months.
Adding to the complexity is the fact that âcohabitation-like relationshipsâ are not defined in the Act, but are determined by the courts under common law, says Barrister Sun. Therefore, in principle, whether two people who are not married are spouses or not is a case-by-case decision. In countless cases, the courts have also established a series of factors to be taken into account, notably:
The intention of the parties: whether they intend to maintain a couple-like relationship in the long or medium to long term, or whether they only intend to have a temporary relationship;
Economic integration: whether they are financially dependent or support each other, or whether they are relatively independent and manage their own affairs;
Shared residence: do the parties live together all the time, or do they each have their own home base and only live together sometimes;
Intimacy: whether normal sexual relations are maintained;
Social activities: whether they go out in pairs and present themselves as partners;
Children: whether or not there are children in common, and the status of child-rearing;
Social perception: whether friends, relatives feel that the two are long term partners or are they just dating or friends who don't even know that they have any relationship.
The court also made it very clear that no one factor is particularly important, but rather that all the evidence must be considered in a holistic manner.
Barrister Sun argued that in M1's case, M1 met Mr. Y as early as the spring of 2004, cohabited with Mr. Y soon after meeting him, and gave birth to Mr. Y's child in 2008, but during this period Mr. Y married and divorced other people, and fell in love with many women and had many children, which showed that Mr. Y never intended to maintain an exclusive partnership with M1.
Moreover, Mr. Y and M1 had no assets in common, and Mr. Y did not provide regular financial support to M1; Mr. Y immigrated to Canada in 2007, and M1 never came to Vancouver to live with Mr. Y until Mr. Y's murder in 2015, and Mr. Y never took her on any trips, and so on. In light of the above, the Court found that Mr. Y and M1 were not in a âmarriage-like relationshipâ, which was reasonable and justified.
Case Review
The trial of the estate of Mr. Y, the murdered Chinese tycoon, started on November 26, 2018 and ended on December 14, 2018, in which Mother 2 (M2) suddenly withdrew from the case at the beginning of December, and was approved by the court to become a witness for the defense, and the amount of the agreement was not disclosed.
In their closing arguments, lawyers representing each of the five children cited different definitions of marriage and spouse under Canadian and Chinese law to argue that the only original complainant in the case, Mother M1, was not married to Mr. Y. M1's lawyers refuted this.
On May 2, 2015, Mr. Y, a Chinese Canadian tycoon, was murdered and mutilated in his $5 million mansion in West Vancouver, British Columbia. The suspect involved was Z, then a 54-year-old Chinese man, who was allegedly the deceased's cousin's husband.
Mr. Y had a number of children but was single during his lifetime.
After Mr. Y's death, a number of women appeared claiming to be Mr. Y's âwifeâ. At least seven women claimed to have given birth to Mr. Y, and more than a hundred others claimed to have had a ârelationshipâ with Mr. Y, all of whom wanted a share of the multi-million dollar estate.
According to court documents, Mr. Y married a Canadian woman in September 2005, and in 2007 he obtained permanent resident status in Canada. However, Mr. Y divorced the Canadian woman in August of the same year, after obtaining permanent resident status. Accordingly, the court found that Mr. Y had married under false pretenses for the purpose of immigration.
Prior to his death, Mr. Y was living in West Vancouver with the family of the suspected murderer, Z, which also included Z's wife, daughter, and mother-in-law, and Mr. Y was acquainted with all five mothers in this case in China. All of them continue to live in China except M2, whose children moved in with Mr. Y shortly before his death.
To be considered Mr. Y's spouse under the BC Wills and Estate Succession Act, M1 had to be in a âmarriage-like relationshipâ with Mr. Y for the last two years before his death. To be considered Mr Y's spouse, M1 had to satisfy herself that she had lived with Mr Y in a âmarriage-like relationshipâ for the last two years before his death.
The judge found that there was no marriage-like relationship between M1 and Mr. Y after at least 2011. Even if a marriage had existed, Mr. Y had ended their relationship when he cancelled M1's trip to Canada in 2014.
The judge said this was not a contest between M1 and the other mothers, but the testimony of the other mothers was critical to determining M1's relationship with Mr. Y. First, the evidence that the other mothers were with Mr. Y affected M1's credibility. Secondly, it also showed Mr. Y's attitude towards M1.
The document also states that from November 2013 until Mr. Y's death, Mr. Y was in relationships with several other mothers. In addition, he posted courtship messages on dating websites and traveled with other women to places such as Las Vegas in the United States and the United Kingdom during this period.
Mr. Y had also paid for rent for mothers M2 and M3 and had persuaded mothers M2 and M3 to relocate to Canada, where M2 and the children eventually moved in July 2014, and the judge found that it was likely that M2 and the children had moved to Canada because of the relationship between M2 and M3, and that Mr. Y's relationship with M2 and M3 had not been a successful one. The judge found that it was likely that it was because of M2's move to Canada that Mr. Y cancelled M1 and the children's trip to Canada.
The judge said M1's evidence in support of her role as Mr. Y's wife was simply the alleged living together, spending New Year's with her family, caring for Mr. Y's father in hospital and Mr. Y's relationship with the children. According to M1, she lived at Mr. Y's parents' home from 2007 to 2011 and went back to stay there when Mr. Y was not traveling. However, the judge said that in reality, Mr. Y lived in an apartment in a major Chinese city from 2007 onwards, and although M1 claimed that she often stayed there as well, this contradicted the times mentioned in the confessions of several other mothers.
In this case, the judge found that sexual relations were one of the important factors for the court to consider, and that M1 could not prove that she had sex with Mr. Y in the two years prior to his death, but that both mothers M2 and M3 could provide proof.
The court also found that Court's testimony lacked detail and that he knew little about Mr. Y and had little contact with him before his death. The judge therefore found that M1 and Mr. Y had not lived together since M1 moved into the apartment provided by Yuan in 2011, and that M1 had not seen Mr. Y in the eight months leading up to his death in September 2014, when Mr. Y left China for the last time.
Mr. Y also had no desire to live a similar married life with M1, and the fact that he arranged for M2 to come to Canada is evidence of the denial of his desire to live a long-term married life with M1.
Counsel for each of Mr. Y's four other children also gave evidence that Mr. Y never had any regard for M1 and stated that Mr. Y and M1 also rarely attended social events together as a couple, that only family members approved of their relationship, and that Mr. Y did not participate in the children's school activities even though the children asked their father to do so. Mr. Y also did not provide living expenses for M1, who received her money mainly from Mr. Y's mother and from M1's own mother and family.
In addition, Mr. Y and M1 did not have a joint bank account or joint property in their names, and the house in which M1 lived was in fact provided by Yuan and was in the name of Child #1. While Mr. Y had purchased expensive gifts for M1, he had also purchased gifts for other mothers and taken them on trips, but he had never taken M1 on a trip. The judge therefore found that the relationship between M1 and Mr. Y was not marriage-like and ruled against M1.