Stepchildren out in the cold for fatal accident compensation

In a recent Alberta case, the court held that the stepchildren of a man killed in a motor vehicle accident were not entitled to the automatic $45,000 payment made by the insurer to the man's natural and adopted children.  The stepchildren had argued that it was contrary to the equality guarantees in the Charter of Rights to extend those benefits only to natural or adopted children, especially since they had been closer to the deceased when he died than his biological and adopted children were.  The court disagreed.  The Charter does not include a direct reference to stepchildren in protection against discrimination, so the stepchildren had to prove that their situation was similar to the situation of other groups protected by the Charter in that stepchildren suffered from discrimination and denigration in Canadian society.  The court said that stepchildren do not suffer any such mistreatment, and therefore are not "analagous" to other Charter-protected groups.  Dares v. Newman 2012 AJ No 531
Cases about stepchildren are important for same sex families because unless the non-biological parent adopts the child born to her or his partner, the child is, legally, a stepchild of the non-biological parent.  That is true even if the parents marry.  (The same is true of a child born to a heterosexual couple if one parent is not biologically related to the child).