B.C. judge rules that a deceased man's estranged wife and common-law spouse will split his monthly post-retirement survivor benefits
September 24, 2024
The estranged wife and common-law spouse of a deceased man will split the post-retirement survivor benefits under his pension after the Supreme Court of British Columbia ruled that they each had a claim over the pension payments.
The deceased separated from his wife (Gorecki) sometime after 1998 and moved to Poland, almost two decades after their marriage in Vancouver. Despite the fact he had never divorced his first wife, in 2004, the deceased purportedly married a new partner (Byelyeychuk).
When the deceased passed away in 2015, the pension administrator took the position that Byelyeychuk was entitled to the survivor benefit as his common-law partner, but Gorecki objected, claiming that she was the deceased’s spouse and beneficiary under the pension at the time that he began collecting pension payments in 2012.
After reviewing the evidence, the court determined that Byelyeychuk was entitled to the survivor benefit under the British Columbia Pension Benefits Standards Act (the PBSA), finding that she was his common-law partner when he started receiving his pension, as well as at his death, and the deceased and Gorecki had been separated in 2004, when he married Byelyeychuk.
However, the PBSA makes pensions and benefits paid under it subject to provincial property laws governing the rights of spouses in the event of a marriage breakdown.
In this case, the court concluded that Gorecki was entitled to relief under the Family Law Act (FLA), noting that the entire pension benefit was accrued while she and the deceased were married.
Considering these factors, the court ruled that that the survivor benefit should be split evenly between Gorecki and Byelyeychuk, determining that, on the specific facts of the case, this was the most equitable remedy.
Click on more information below to read the court’s decision:
