“On the question of joint family venture, the trial judge considered how the parties had conducted themselves during their cohabitation. She considered, among other things, the improvements to the property without expectation of compensation, the granting of minority interests in the respondent’s company to the appellant and their son when it was incorporated in 2004, the fact that the appellant wrote cheques on the respondent’s bank account for his share of household expenses, and the fact that both parties worked full-time and contributed their earnings to the joint expenses of the household, including the cost of childcare. While the trial judge did not expressly consider the evidence under the various headings in Kerr v. Baranow, 2011 SCC 10 (CanLII), [2011] 1 S.C.R. 269, at para. 100 (mutual effort, economic integration, actual intent and priority of the family), she clearly considered all of these factors. The finding that there was a joint family venture in this case was open to the trial judge on the evidence.
Further, we do not accept the appellant’s submission that the evidence was that the only payments the respondent made, other than loan repayments, were in the final two years of the relationship. Bank statements were only available for that period, and the trial judge accepted the respondent’s testimony that he had contributed to household expenses throughout the relationship, including some payments in cash. Further, having regard to the parties’ incomes, the only way the mortgage could have been paid down early was if both had contributed.
Finally, the appellant contends that the finding of joint family venture did not remove or lessen the burden on the respondent to quantify and prove his contributions. She says that there was no evidence to support the award of damages by the trial judge, and that after finding that there was a joint family enterprise, she simply awarded the respondent the lesser of one half of the net proceeds from the sale of the property after repayment to the appellant of $147,000, and $86,500 (the amount of his claim). She ought to have determined the respondent’s proportionate contribution before making the order she did.
We do not find reversible error here. The appropriate remedy in a joint family venture case is “a share of the wealth accumulated through the parties’ joint efforts proportionate to the claimant’s contributions”: Kerr, at para. 102. Contrary to the appellant’s submissions, that would not entail a detailed review of the respondent’s contributions (akin to a quantum meruit approach); indeed, as the court stated in Kerr, also at para. 102, “[w]hile determining the proportionate contributions of the parties is not an exact science, it generally does not call for a minute examination of the give and take of daily life. It calls, rather, for the reasoned exercise of judgment in light of all of the evidence.”