Love not a ‘requirement’ for marriage, B.C. judge says in ruling on multimillionaire’s separation

Thomas Alan Budd is seen in this photo from the website for his foundation. (Credit: tabf.ca)

A B.C. philanthropist worth an estimated $150 million has been ordered to pay his former fiancée more than $5 million after a judge rejected his argument that the much-younger woman was never his spouse and never loved him—in a decision that details the couple’s drug-fuelled escapades and tumultuous relationship.

Thomas Alan Budd and Kaitlynn Vanessa Fleury undisputedly ended their relationship on Aug. 30, 2021, according to a B.C. Supreme Court decision published online Monday.

“Mr. Budd arrived with security guards, his assistants, and a friend. Mr. Budd read a prepared statement to Ms. Fleury, evicting her,” the decision said. “Mr. Budd’s second assistant recorded what was transpiring.”

The relationship between the now-67-year-old man and now-38-year-old woman was the subject of a trial that lasted 55 days and resulted in a nearly 100-page decision.

“Broadly stated, the central issues in dispute are whether the parties were ‘spouses’ as defined in the Family Law Act, and if so, the valuation and division of family property,” Justice Jacqueline Hughes’ decision said, at the outset.

‘Lavish lifestyle’ and ‘significant conflict’

Budd worked as an investment banker from 1981 to 2009, according to a profile on the website of The Thomas Alan Budd Foundation, which describes him as an “accomplished entrepreneur, philanthropist, (and) motivator.”

The foundation has made sizable donations to a laundry list of well-known charities including the BC Cancer Society, BC Children’s Hospital and the Canadian Mental Health Association.

“Mr. Budd has survived the tragic suicide of both his sons, Dillon and Payton Budd. His painful loss has been the advent of a new journey and purpose – to share his story, to give people hope, and help get them through the hardest times in their lives by speaking out,” the profile says.

“Mr. Budd has embraced his community. He is a leader, a listener and a speaker. He strives to inspire others to do their best,” it continues.

Budd met Fleury, a massage therapist, in 2015 when she began providing him with treatment, according to the court decision. The two developed a “close friendship” over the next few years and began a romantic relationship in 2018, the decision said.

“There was no expectation that Ms. Fleury would contribute financially towards maintaining the lavish lifestyle (Budd) enjoyed before, and which they enjoyed together during, the relationship,” the judge wrote.

“From the outset of the relationship, Mr. Budd provided Ms. Fleury with an allowance, supported her ceasing work as a massage therapist, and paid for her expenses, including their extensive travel together and Ms. Fleury’s significant health, beauty, and fashion expenses.”

The court heard conflict between the couple began after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 which also roughly coincided with a period where Budd and Fleury “enabled the other in their extensive and progressively worsening drug use.”

Nevertheless, later that year the couple purchased a diamond worth an estimated $60,000 and got engaged, according to the decision.

“Neither party broke off the engagement despite episodes of significant conflict in their relationship. Ms. Fleury remained engaged to Mr. Budd despite his increasingly demeaning and verbally abusive behaviour towards her,” the judge wrote.

Some of that behaviour was documented in “surreptitious” recordings Fleury made that were admitted into evidence at the trial, according to the decision.

“Ms. Fleury recorded portions of a series of instances where Mr. Budd can be heard encouraging her to consume more drugs and to have sex with other men, yelling and swearing at her, repeatedly calling her a ‘f*****g c**t,’ and threatening to take away her credit cards,” the judge wrote.

Is love a ‘requirement’ for a spousal relationship?

For a relationship to be considered legally marriage-like there are “objective” indicators the court considers aside from living arrangements—including sexual behaviour, social activity and societal perception, and financial arrangements, the judgment explained.

The decision assessed those aspects of the relationship and found they “weigh(ed) in favour of the parties being in a marriage-like relationship.”

The couple were intimate sexually, and maintained an “attitude of fidelity towards one another, despite occasionally participating in sexual activities with third parties both together and individually.” They appeared together at charity events and integrated their families and social lives, the decision said. Budd supported Fleury financially and added her to his will, according to the decision.

Budd argued that regardless of these factors, Fleury was not his spouse because she did not love him and therefore lacked the “subjective intention” to be in a marriage-like relationship.

“Mr. Budd says that he was in love with Ms. Fleury and wanted to build a life with her, but that she saw him and their relationship as a means to a lavish lifestyle. Mr. Budd submits that Ms. Fleury’s intentions ‘were entirely motivated by self-interest,’” the court heard.

“His position is that a relationship cannot be ‘marriage-like’ unless the parties share romantic love for one another,” the judge said, summarizing this argument.

But love, the judge said, is not a legal “requirement” for marriage and never has been.

“Mr. Budd’s position fails to recognize that people choose to marry, or enter into marriage-like relationships, for a variety of reasons that are entirely independent of modern concepts of romantic love—i.e. for religious, personal, familial, or financial reasons. The law does not consider those relationships any less valid,” the decision said.

Still, the judge said she would address Budd’s claim that Fleury’s conduct showed she never loved him given that it “formed a central tenet of his position at trial.”

In support of his position, Budd—who developed a drug addiction in his late 40s and was prone to relapse—alleged Fleury was responsible for bringing drugs into their home and enabling his use throughout their relationship.

“The record is replete with examples of both parties procuring drugs, bringing them into their homes, and encouraging the other to engage in drug use over the course of their relationship. Both parties had connections through which they procured and ‘cooked’ cocaine and they engaged in drug use with friends and neighbours—they were even given strawberry cocaine as an engagement present,” the decision said.

“Ms. Fleury’s participation in what I find to be mutual and voluntary drug use by both parties is not indicative of a lack of love for Mr. Budd.”

Budd’s other arguments in support of his claim Fleury did not love him included allegations that she was planning to leave him as soon as she became legally entitled to claim compensation.

While Hughes found Fleury was “questioning” whether to stay with Budd and “considered the financial implications of doing so,” the judge said that didn’t prove Fleury did not love Budd, or that she did not intend to have a relationship with him of “indeterminate and lengthy duration.”

If Budd sought to claim he had been deceived or defrauded, the judge said he could have pursued legal action on those grounds.

“Mr. Budd’s position is that Ms. Fleury deceived him into thinking she loved him, and that this deceit caused him to stay in the relationship longer that he otherwise would have. If his position is that the relationship was commenced under false pretenses or that Ms. Fleury perpetrated a fraud on him, then the law provides other means of redress,” Hughes wrote.

“Mr. Budd does not plead a claim in fraud or misrepresentation, and consistent with his pleadings, confirmed in his closing submissions that he does not claim damages for the tort of deceit.”

‘Contentious’ cohabitation date

How long a couple lives together is a crucial part of determining whether an unmarried couple without children are spouses under B.C.’s Family Law Act—with a cohabitation period of two years required for a so-called common-law marriage.

Whether Budd and Fleury hit this mark was one of the central issues at trial.

“Mr. Budd was well-familiar with the implications of that threshold being crossed in terms of his potential obligations to Ms. Fleury. As he testified, he had previously ended relationships short of two years to avoid such obligations,” the decision said.

The burden of proving a spousal relationship fell to Fleury, who told the court she began living with Budd in October of 2018.

Budd, for his part, told the court he and Fleury did not begin living together until September of 2019, which the judge noted meant their break-up would have happened “less than 48 hours before the two-year threshold.”

Two “cohabitation letters” from 2019 were considered by the court, both saying the couple did not live together, that Fleury was financially independent, and that she would not seek compensation or support from Budd.

The judge placed no weight on their contents, and found they served to undermine Budd’s credibility.

“I find that these letters were Mr. Budd’s idea, that they were written at his request, and that he dictated their contents,” she said.

“The existence of these two documents, their false and misleading content, and the role I find Mr. Budd played in their creation illustrate the lengths to which he was prepared to go in creating documentation with a view to substantiating a misleading narrative about when he and Ms. Fleury started living together and the nature of their relationship.”

In addition to the letters, the decision noted the couple spent about a year and a half going back and forth in an attempt to negotiate a cohabitation agreement—a document that would have been a legally binding contract outlining their respective rights and obligations if the relationship ended.

But the date on which they started living together was “a particularly contentious point” and Fleury refused to sign the document, according to the agreement.

The judge ultimately rejected both Budd and Fleury’s claims about when they started living together, finding issues with both parties’ credibility in general.

“Both Ms. Fleury and Mr. Budd demonstrated a willingness to mislead when it suited their purposes and had difficulty resisting the influence of self-interest in modifying their recollections of key events in their relationship,” the judge wrote.

Still, based on the evidence as a whole, the judge found the two lived together for roughly 31 months, which meant Fleury was entitled to an unspecified amount of spousal support and a share of family property.

Other claims dismissed

Fleury also sued Budd for intentional infliction of mental suffering, alleging he was verbally abusive and coerced her into sex with third parties which caused her drug addiction and “other mental injuries.”

The judge said she had “no hesitation” concluding Budd was verbally abusive based on the audio recordings submitted as evidence.

“Mr. Budd can be heard yelling, swearing, berating, and sometimes threatening Ms. Fleury about different matters including, by way of example: his dissatisfaction with a home haircut Ms. Fleury arranged for him during COVID, complaints that she was too noisy when working out with her trainer at the (property), her lack of friends and ongoing relationship with her mother, and his dissatisfaction with certain sexual aspects of their relationship. The recordings also contain instances where Mr. Budd threatens to cancel the credit cards that he gave Ms. Fleury and to have her thrown out of a hotel room,” Hughes wrote.

“Marked features of the relevant recordings include the aggressive and raised tone of Mr. Budd’s voice and the frequency with which Mr. Budd uses derogatory and demeaning language towards Ms. Fleury.”

Proving her claim of intentional infliction of mental suffering, however, would have required two legal tests to be met, on a balance of probabilities.

First, Fleury would have had to prove Budd engaged in “conduct that is flagrant and outrageous” and “calculated to produce harm.” Second, she would have had to demonstrate the conduct caused “a visible and provable illness.”

Even if the verbal abuse had met the first requirement, which the judge found it did not, the claim would have failed because Fleury did not introduce expert evidence or otherwise prove a “causal link” between the verbal abuse and her drug addiction or other “psychological symptoms.”

The judge outright rejected Fleury’s claim Budd had coerced her into having sex with other people, including escorts they “chose” together, during their relationship.

“The parties engaged in sexual activities with third parties,” Hughes wrote.

“This predominantly occurred when they were using drugs and involved Ms. Fleury having sexual intercourse with other men while Mr. Budd was present. While both parties say this was at the other’s request, I find that engaging in this conduct was a mutual decision and that Ms. Fleury’s participation was voluntary.”

While Hughes reviewed audio recordings of Budd becoming “extremely angry” when Fleury did not want to have sex with other people, the judge ruled those recordings were evidence that “she did not participate when she did not want to and then suffered the consequences of Mr. Budd’s ire.”

The court also dismissed Fleury’s civil claim for assault and battery, finding her accounts of two 2020 instances in which she alleged Budd had pushed her were not credible, and that she had not proven Budd “intentionally inflicted unlawful force” on her or that the physical contact was “harmful or offensive.”

‘Equal division of family property’

Because the court found the couple were legally spouses, Fleury was ultimately found to be entitled to equal division of family property, despite Budd’s objections.

“Mr. Budd does not suggest what reapportionment of family property would be fair as between the parties. He simply says that Ms. Fleury is not entitled to anything beyond the $860,000 she has already received,” the decision said.

The judge, however, found Fleury was entitled to an amount equivalent to 50 per cent of the “increase in value” on Budd’s so-called “excluded property” starting at the date of cohabitation and ending at the date of the trial.

The increase in value of Budd’s Canadian real estate, financial and corporate assets, artwork collection, with a couple of other additions and deductions factored in, worked out to $12,011,783.

Fleury was entitled to half of that, minus what she had already received from Budd, which worked out to $5,145,892.

The judge found Budd and Fleury had “divided success” at trial, the most likely outcome on legal costs, barring any future submissions, was that they would

each bear their own.