Does s. 2 of the Women's Voluntary Arrangement (WVA) apply to a person who is in a relationship with the deceased's wife, husband or children?

British Columbia, Canada


The following excerpt is from Somodi v. Szabados, 2007 BCSC 857 (CanLII):

As of the deceased’s death, s. 2 of the WVA provided that a testator’s “wife, husband or children” had the right to claim relief under the WVA, but did not give the same right to a person who was in “a marriage-like relationship”. That changed with the decision of Scarth J. rendered on January 11, 2000, in Grigg v. Berg Estate, 2000 BCSC 36, 26 B.C.L.R. (4th) 348 [Grigg] in which he ruled that s. 2 of the WVA was unconstitutional by being discriminatory in violation of s. 15(1) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

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