What is the entitlement to indefinite support for a woman who was married for a short period of time?
British Columbia, Canada
The following excerpt is from Swart v Redelinghuys, 2017 BCSC 2066 (CanLII):
However, in the circumstances of this case, this entitlement does not extend to an award of indefinite support. This was a short marriage, and the respondent was only in her mid-fifties when it ended. She had a long prior history of full-time employment and economic self-sufficiency. She owns her home in South Africa and has significant equity in it. Though I acknowledge that independent medical evidence substantiating the respondent’s claims to be disabled from working is not always essential (see Leskun v. Leskun, 2006 SCC 25 at para. 28), in this case I am satisfied that its absence is telling. For years she has been under the care of a well-known local surgeon concerning her knee and rotator cuff issues. Confirmation from him of the respondent’s claimed incapacity would have been easy to obtain. I gave her an adjournment of several months to do precisely that. She returned to court empty-handed.
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