Erika Margaret LeVan broke down frequently in the days preceding her June 22, 1996, marriage, but they were not the emotional tears of someone about to realize her dream of marrying the man she loved.
They were tears of anguish and uncertainty, caused by a marriage contract that her intended -- Bruce LeVan -- was aggressively pushing on her.
Unbeknownst to Ms. LeVan, the document carefully concealed Mr. LeVan's vast wealth and would effectively cut her out of his riches in the event of marital breakdown. Only after they had separated in 2003 did Ms. LeVan, 42, learn that her husband had been worth $14.6-million at the time of their marriage and $33-million on the day they separated.
Three years after the separation, Ontario Superior Court Judge Nancy Backhouse has thrown out the contract and ordered Mr. LeVan -- 44-year-old scion of one of the 100 richest men in Canada -- to pay his former wife an equalization payment of $5.3-million.
"The husband deliberately breached his disclosure obligations," Judge Backhouse concluded in her ruling. "He interfered with the wife's attempts to receive independent legal advice. He wanted a marriage contract. He was indifferent to whether it was fair."
Judge Backhouse noted that during the marriage, Ms. LeVan was expected to finance a large share of their family expenses using a modest allowance. Believing their resources to be modest, she even cashed in her RRSPs and lived in apprehension that the couple might lose their home.
The award represents a share of the increase in Mr. LeVan's share of the family company, Wescast Industries Inc. -- the world's largest manufacturer of exhaust manifolds for cars and light trucks.
While judges are increasingly holding partners responsible for the contracts they sign, Judge Backhouse said the LeVan contract was an aberration; a clear product of misrepresentation and improper disclosure.
Ms. LeVan's nightmare began several weeks before the planned marriage, when her fiancé instructed her that his father adamantly required anyone marrying one of his four children to sign a marriage contract that would exclude the family business from any future division of marital assets.
In her judgment, Judge Backhouse agreed with Ms. LeVan's current lawyers -- Philip Epstein and Ilana Zylberman -- that Mr. LeVan deliberately down played the family business and the importance of the marriage contract. Meanwhile, she noted, Ms. LeVan's attention was fully occupied by her full-time job and the need to arrange a wedding with 160 guests.
With the wedding imminent, a small-town lawyer Ms. LeVan had hired to check the contract became suspicious of its wording and warned her that it was unfair and "unconscionable."
Mr. LeVan furiously undermined the lawyer to his fiancé, calling the man "an idiot," and pressed Ms. LeVan to find a new lawyer. Reluctantly, she did so.
"The wife trusted her husband completely," Judge Backhouse remarked. "She was getting very anxious as the wedding date was fast approaching. She was afraid that she and the husband were not going to be able to be married if the contract did not get signed soon."
Her new lawyer came at the recommendation of Mr. LeVan's own lawyer, Karen Bales, and had once represented Ms. Bales in her own marital problems. The new lawyer met Ms. LeVan two days before the wedding for the first and only time. She made a couple of inconsequential changes to the contract, and Ms. LeVan signed.
"In surrendering virtually all of her rights and agreeing to contract out of the provisions of the Family Law Act, she did so without any meaningful information about the husband's assets and income, coupled with seriously misleading information about his net worth," Judge Backhouse said.