“Unmarried Ontario couple had no children and no house but man must still pay support, appeal court rules” (National Post):
Under Ontario law, an unmarried couple are considered common-law spouses if they have cohabited — lived together in a conjugal relationship — continuously for at least three years. But that doesn’t necessarily mean living in the same home, the court found.
“Lack of a shared residence is not determinative of the issue of cohabitation,” the Appeal Court said. “There are many cases in which courts have found cohabitation where the parties stayed together only intermittently.”
The decision comes in the case of Lisa Climans and Michael Latner, both of Toronto, who began a romantic relationship after meeting in October 2001. At the time, she was 38 and separated with two children, court records show. He was 46 and divorced with three children.
Although they maintained their separate homes, Latner and Climans behaved as a couple both privately and publicly. They vacationed together. He gave her a 7.5-carat diamond ring and other jewelry that she wore. She quit her job and would regularly sleep at his house. They travelled together and talked about living together.
Latner proposed several times and Climans accepted. He often referred to her by his last name. However, he insisted she sign a marriage contract and came up with several drafts. She refused.
Throughout their relationship, the two kept separate bank accounts and never owned property in common. Nevertheless, Latner gave Climans thousands of dollars every month, a credit card, paid off her mortgage and showered her with expensive gifts. He provided her and her children with a “lavish lifestyle,” the court found.
When their 14-year relationship finally broke down in May 2015, Climans asked the courts to recognize her as Latner’s spouse and order him to pay her support. He argued she had been a travel companion and girlfriend, nothing more. As such, he said, they were never legally spouses and he owed no support. An eight-day trial ensued.
In her decision in February 2019, Superior Court Justice Sharon Shore sided with Climans. She ruled they were in fact long-time spouses, finding that despite their separate home, they lived under one roof at Latner’s cottage for part of the summer, and during winter vacations in Florida. Shore ordered him to pay her $53,077 monthly indefinitely. Latner appealed.
The Appeal Court did find Shore had made an error in deciding how long Latner would have to pay Climans support based on when they first began cohabiting. While Shore had found that to be almost from the get-go, the higher court said it wasn’t earlier than their first stay together at his cottage, meaning they didn’t reach the threshold for indefinite payments.
Instead, it ordered him to pay her support for 10 years.
So, the gal who refused to sign the prenuptial agreement will end up with CAD$6,369,240 (about $5 million U.S.). Canadians who identify as “women” and who work full-time full-year earn about CAD$52,500 per year (statcan). Thus, for her work as a travel companion, jewelry recipient, and (presumably) sex partner, Lisa Climans will receive, in addition to gifts already banked, 121 years of salary at the average wage paid to a Canadian identifying as a “woman” who endures the drudgery of 40 hours per week in the labor force.
In the Distillery District of Toronto… Love (possibly convertible into cash).
What was the old/conventional understanding of the law? From a group of divorce, custody, and child support litigators in Ontario:
In Ontario, Canada, two people are considered common law partners if they have been continuously living together in a conjugal relationship for at least three years. If they have a child together by birth or adoption, then they only need to have been living together for one year.
In Canada, a “conjugal relationship” is more than just a sexual relationship. A “conjugal relationship” in Canada is one in which two people share a home, finances, friend groups, and an emotional connection on top of having a sexual relationship.
Related:
Many persons don’t realize the extent to which “rule of law” has become “rule of judges,” where judges favor sympathetic parties (women crying) or seek status-market credit (do what the New York Times orders). Here’s a pervasive example of this legal reality:
https://www.acrosswalls.org/domestic-violence-emergency-law-has-broad-scope/
> Latner proposed several times and Climans accepted. He often referred to her by his last name. However, he insisted she sign a marriage contract and came up with several drafts. She refused.
What happens in the minds of these guys when they reach an impasse like this – repeatedly – and don’t understand they’re about to get their heads handed to them? Don’t any of their friends (male and female!) tell them: “Eject! Eject!”
I know. Dr. Hfuhruhurr was a luminary brain surgeon and he couldn’t see it coming either. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkcKQmr7kRc
I mean, it just beggars belief that a person like Latner – wealthy, sophisticated, presumably with legions of friends and access to the best legal advice on the Planet, could continue to press on while every red flag, klaxon horn and ding-dong is going off.
https://www.artnews.com/art-collectors/top-200-profiles/steven-latner-and-michael-latner/
“At the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, a gallery named after the brothers is dedicated to the influential Canadian artist Michael Snow, who is perhaps best known as the director of the pioneering Structuralist film Wavelength (1967). … In 2019, Canadian Business magazine pegged the Latner family’s net worth at a cool $1.12 billion, making them the 93rd richest family in Canada.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wavelength_(1967_film)
Alex: Even if the defendant had legal advice on this topic, I am not sure that he would have been counseled to do anything different in order to avoid this outcome. Until this seven-million-dollar award, most Canadian lawyers seemed to have understood the law as requiring a shared residence in order for a plaintiff to get paid. The plaintiff here essentially won under a new law or at least a new interpretation of the law. Certainly in retrospect the defendant would have been offer off if he’d moved to a low-tax European jurisdiction in which family court profits are limited, but at the time that he was affiliated with this plaintiff there was no way to predict that she would be able to avail herself of the family court’s jurisdiction.
@Philg: “The plaintiff here essentially won under a new law or at least a new interpretation of the law.” Thanks for the explanation. It makes “sense” and describes the perilous legal situation, but it’s still surreal to me that she refused to sign the marriage contract and he apparently didn’t realize the sky was falling. I mean, strictly from the relationship standpoint, it’s like:
“You accepted the 7.5 carat diamond ring, the credit cards and the money. You quit your job. You don’t mind using my last name. We have a great time together and we’re very happy. You say you love me. But you won’t sign this piece of paper?”
I guess by that point it was too late, and he didn’t know what was about to hit him when the law turned out to be made of silly putty.
Tom Hagen: A lawyer with his briefcase can steal more than a hundred men with guns.
Teaching moment: Never ever ever ever provide a woman with a lavish lifestyle.
It does not seem like a crazy decision in a jurisdiction that accepts common law marriage and has no single indicia for defining a “conjugal relationship.” So from her perspective they were together for 14 years, she quit her job (presumably because he promised to support her), he paid her bills, they seem to have held themselves out to third parties as a married couple, etc. From his perspective that they did not live together in a single home and that she did not sign the prenup, etc. Though the failure to sign the prenup seems more a matter of color than relevance since it seems that the court considered them married at common law so the failure to sign the so-called prenup is about the same as a married couple, one of whom wants the other post the marriage legalities to sign an agreement as to disposition of property, etc. in the event the marriage fails & is led along, etc.
So what line does one have to not cross if a man wants to have a girlfriend without giving her court-mandated freedom from employment for many years after seeing her for the last time? I assume that the line is going to keep moving with no limit. Anyone want to bet on how soon we’ll see the first beta-orbiter or ex-roommate paying mandatory alimony or child support to a woman he never once had sex with (nor married)?
This is not the family-law hill to die on. The settlement is pocket change at this level of wealth.
If it was “pocket change”, why didn’t he pay voluntarily?
I think it is interesting that the term “settlement” is used for this court-ordered transfer of seven million dollars from a defendant to a plaintiff.
Suppose that Company A sues Company B. Company B loses the lawsuit and appeals. The appeals court orders Company B to pay seven million dollars to Company A and threatens to imprison the officers of Company B if the money isn’t paid. Would the seven million dollars then be characterized as a “settlement”?
When a family court orders a defendant to pay money, with the alternative being imprisonment, North Americans somehow want to think of this as a “settlement”, a term otherwise used for a mutual agreement between parties.
paging Pavel our comrade in the north. Pavel what do you think about this?
I hope he’s not too busy interfering in elections to respond!
Comrades, my apologies for my late response. I was detained at the border, the guards mistaken my vials of Sputnik V for Novichok.
Observations
1) The Canadian courts were reasonable, $5 mil USD. In the US she would have got at least $50 mil USD.
2) For Latner, $5 mil is spare change, it will not greatly effect his lifestyle.
3) Latner is shorter than Climans, women will not sleep with shorter men, other than for money, in the pictures, she is definitely the man.
Based on this judgement, if someone is seeing the same prostitute / call girl [1], on a regular basics, shouldn’t this prostitute / call girl sue this someone for support after some X years has passed? Or is the judge going to discriminate against those women and deny them what’s is rightfully theirs?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_girl
Promiscuity has become a legal necessity!
John: That is an interesting point. If this defendant had been ladling out the cash to three different vendors for the past 10 years, none of the individual vendors could have claimed to have been a common law spouse.