Court orders B.C. woman to pay dead boyfriend’s estate $400,000 after she spends his money

The B.C. Supreme Court has ordered a Richmond woman to pay her dead boyfriend’s estate $400,000 in damages after it decided she took advantage of his vulnerable circumstances and spent money he had intended to leave his children.

Diana Warriner’s boyfriend died from a fentanyl overdose in October 2018 without writing a will.

Postmedia News isn’t including the name of the 47-year-old man to protect the identity of his children, who were aged nine and 11 when he died.

Warriner tried to take control of his estate and, in court, she faced the boyfriend’s children as well as their mother, who is her boyfriend’s former spouse and the administrator of his estate.

Warriner claimed she had lived with her boyfriend for more than two years in a common-law relationship, which would qualify her to be his spouse at the time of his death, according to the provincial act governing wills, estates and succession.