FILE PHOTO

Image Credit: Cliff MacArthur/provincialcourt.bc.ca

The family of an intellectually disabled Vernon man will reclaim their family’s inheritance against a legal challenge from a woman who said she married their brother in secret.

Raymer Ross needed care his entire life and lived with his mother most of his adult life. When his mother died, he was left with the family home in trust, according to a recent BC Supreme Court decision.

When Raymer died in 2020 at age 83, the property was assessed at $480,000 and according to a will drawn in 1979, would have gone to his brother and sister.

That’s when they discovered that Raymer signed a second will in 2019, written on a word-processor on a template, that left his estate and assets “to my wife Korenna Matsen.”

This despite the fact doctors, psychiatrists and lawyers over the years repeatedly declined to adjust his will because he lacked the capacity to form such a contract.

The question for Justice Terence Schultes wasn’t about which will was viable — neither of them were, which in normal cases means the estate would be distributed among heirs, beginning with a spouse.

The question was whether the marriage itself was legal and viable.

Schultes said Matsen couldn’t “show that Mr. Ross’s obvious dependence on her did not result in her exerting undue influence over the making of that will.”

Schultes was aided in large part by the care given to Raymer by Dr. David Screen, who called Matsen “predatory.”

Dr. Screen took notes about his many interactions with Raymer and Matsen, who often accompanied him to his appointments, first as a friend, then as his wife.

She often complained that Raymer’s money was tied up in the house by his brother and the Public Trustee and Guardian, which was involved because Raymer was financially taken advantage of by several people in his life.

“Korenna often talked about Raymer's finances, and particularly she complained that somebody else was in control of them,” Dr. Screen wrote in his notes. “Korenna sought methods and opportunities to gain access to Raymer's finances, usually under the guise of "caring for him".

“The reason I use the word 'guise' is because it seemed to me that she tended to reject other appropriate and legitimate methods for care, if those methods involved the use of his weekly funds outside her direct benefit or control.

“I would characterize Korenna's behaviour as predatory.”

She tried several times over the years to modify his will or find ways to get his trust funds before marrying him.

“It was clear to me that Raymer did not understand what marriage was,” Dr. Screen wrote in his notes. “Questioned him about marriage, Raymer told me that he and Korenna never kissed or consummated the marriage. In my experience with him, Raymer never understood adequately the implications of marriage.”

Schultes found that Raymer lacked the capacity to enter such an arrangement, just as he couldn’t form a last will and testament. That means the remainder of Raymer's parents' money will go to their other children.

Read the full decision here.

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