Ethics

Story here.  Opinion here.  We've been seeing wiki references creep into sophisticated articles and it's been reported that on technical subjects wiki can be remarkably accurate.  Still, it's odd to see a judicial reference by a supreme court, especially regarding a term that is no doubt covered in legal dictionaries.  And when the opinion cites "google," I don't imagine that they were specifying a search engine so much as they were using "google" as a substitute for "the internet."  A while back, Daniel Solove, at Concurring Opinions, had thoughts on a related subject ("When is it appropriate to cite to Wikipedia?") and rounded up comments by others.  Key passage in the new opinon:

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33. In our opinion a `relationship in the nature of marriage' is akin to a common law marriage. Common law marriages require that although not being formally married :-

(a) The couple must hold themselves out to society as being akin to spouses.

(b) They must be of legal age to marry.

(c) They must be otherwise qualified to enter into a legal marriage, including being unmarried.

(d) They must have voluntarily cohabited and held themselves out to the world as being akin to spouses for a significant period of time.

(see `Common Law Marriage' in Wikipedia on Google) In our opinion a `relationship in the nature of marriage' under the 2005 Act must also fulfill the above requirements, and in addition the parties must have lived together in a `shared household' as defined in Section 2(s) of the Act. Merely spending weekends together or a one night stand would not make it a `domestic relationship'.