Eliza Coupe of the once hit show
Happy Endings, is now unemployed and soon to be single, after filing for divorce from
her puppeteer and acting coach husband, Randall Whittinghill.
After 7 years of dating the couple were married in 2007, and Coupe has
often stated that her initial attraction to her soon-to-be ex, was his
resemblance to Johnny Depp. Could time be minimizing this likeness that
first caught her attention? And, let’s not forget that Depp seems
to have a dark, brooding side. Well, according to Coupe’s court documents
she is blaming irreconcilable differences for the split.
There are no children of the marriage and so the issues between the couple
are limited to support and division of family property.
In Ontario, the
Family Law Act provides provisions whereby the parties may obtain a division of net family
property that is more or less than half of the difference between each
party’s net family property value. This process is called unequal
division of net family property.
In Ontario, a marriage of less than five years is one of the grounds for
unequal division of net family property, so it looks like Coupe and Whittinghill,
just missed that cut off, which is presumably unfavourable for Coupe,
as she likely has more assets than Whittinghill.
There are many other factors, however, that the courts will still consider
in determining unequal division such as: a spouse’s failure to disclose
debts and liabilities existing at the date of marriage; recklessly incurred
debts and liabilities; and the intentional or reckless depletion of net
family property, to name a few.
The test for the unequal division of net family property is likely purposefully
difficult to meet to prevent the predictable snowball effect every divorce
proceeding involving a claim for unequal division of net family property.
One can very confidently bet that at this point in her life, Coupe just
doesn’t believe in happy endings.