Hunt’s accident was brutal. He was turning a corner on an ATV, hit a
ditch and flew through the air, smashing his head into a tree, his son
Justin said. Hunt was airlifted to a Sudbury hospital and placed on life
support.
Kim Kevin Hunt and his son Brad, in September 2011, when he was
allowed to visit his home on weekends while in hospital. (justin
hunt)
Immediately after the accident, Hunt’s sons, Justin and Brad, rushed
to the hospital (a three-hour drive) while Worrod and her daughter
drove to Hunt’s house “when she knew Brad and Justin would not be
present,” the judgment said. When Hunt’s sons returned, Worrod
“refused to allow them entry and declared that the house belonged to
her.”
“It took police involvement to remove her,” Koke noted.
After the crash, Hunt spent 18 days in a coma. He slowly emerged
and four months later was released into the care of his sons, with
the expectation of a $1-million personal injury settlement. His
mobility and balance were so bad that Brad slept in his father’s bed
to stop him from falling.
At the time of the wedding, three days after leaving the
hospital, Hunt’s vulnerability was undisputed. Seven medical
experts, plus hospital staff reports, all described him as
intellectually devastated, with serious physical issues, according
to the decision.
One psychiatrist said “much or most of Mr. Hunt’s brain had lost
tissue and shrank.” The doctor also said Hunt was “increasingly
malleable and easily influenced using cuing and emotional
stimulation, including sexual relations.”
On Oct. 24, 2011, the day of the wedding, Hunt’s panicked sons
couldn’t find their father but tracked him to the motel through
charges to his credit card, the judgment said. The boys called
police, who found him, but Hunt was already married. The ceremony
had taken place just hours before, at the motel.
At the time of the wedding, a clinical psychologist testified,
Hunt was “extremely vulnerable, especially to reinjuring the brain
and putting himself in unsafe positions.”
The agreement of the medical experts made it clear that Hunt did
not have the “capacity” to marry.
In his decision, Koke issued an order prohibiting contact between
Worrod and Hunt. He cited constant telephone calls from Worrod to
Hunt, including a 2015 call that Justin recorded. The judgment
described the call, saying Worrod “repeatedly attempted to convince
Mr. Hunt that his sons were simply motivated by self-interest, and
were trying to take away his business and his house.” If they were
her kids, she said, she would have “hog tied them and kicked their
ass all the way down the f---ing street by now.”
The decision to void the marriage is notable because Ontario’s
Marriage Act allows almost anyone who is not “under the influence of
intoxicating liquor or drugs or any other reason” to marry. The
rules are loose, leaving little to stop vulnerable people, often the
elderly with dementia, from being pressured to marry.
McEwan, the Hunt family lawyer, says the decision to void the
marriage shows that courts are recognizing the rights of a
vulnerable person. Her law firm, founded by lawyer Kimberly Whaley,
has long pushed for updates to estate and capacity-to-marry laws.
In his decision, Koke relied on a recent British Columbia
judgment (another predatory marriage case) that concluded an
individual must be able to control their personal care — and
property — to have the “capacity” to marry. Previous case law only
required an individual have control over their personal care.
“I think it certainly moves the law forward,” McEwan says. “It
gives hope to lawyers and families alike that these marriages can be
found to be void … which I think is excellent.”
Hunt’s case is unusual because most
predatory brides and grooms target elderly people who are lonely
or fragile because marriage immediately revokes an existing legal
will. After death, the new bride or groom gets the first $200,000
and must split the rest with surviving children — although some burn
through the money.
Ontario protections are
lagging behind provinces like Alberta and British Columbia,
which updated estate laws so that marriage doesn’t immediately
revoke a will. Quebec doesn’t revoke wills nor do most American
states.
It’s a caution for families, particularly when an estimated $1
trillion in inheritance is expected to be passed through generations
over the next 20 years.
Graham Webb, a lawyer with the Advocacy Centre for the Elderly,
says today’s aging society is sitting on huge wealth, mostly from
real estate, so there’s “a lot of incentive for people to prey on
cognitively impaired older adults.”
Hunt is now 56 and living with his son, Justin, 31, in the same
home in the town of Novar. Brad, 27, lives nearby with his wife and
baby daughter.
The brothers run Hunt’s company, Camel Lake Bobcat and
Landscaping, while the insurance money pays for Hunt’s care, from
physiotherapists to personal support workers.
The Hunt brothers managed to keep their father’s five horses,
including two thoroughbreds, former racehorses from Toronto. One of
Hunt’s favourite therapies is horseback riding, says Justin.
While
Hunt testified in court, he doesn’t fully understand the outcome of
the case. But his sons do.
“It’s a relief,” says Justin. ‘Nothing was worse than worrying
about something for over six years, every day and night. It’s been
nice not to have to worry about Dad losing his house, or not having
a decent life.”
Moira Welsh
