Let’s see…where to start.  First, full disclosure.  I’m a single American male and have never been married, so I am speaking from what I‘ve read and have been told.  I am not a lawyer, so don’t take what I say as gospel.  With all of the disclosures, here’s my take.

I believe it is fairly common in US divorces to have the giving of a get be part of the divorce agreement.  Quite often Jewish men will “ransom” the get from the wife, for either money, the kids, or something else.  In essence, the get is just like any other piece of property.  It has value and can be negotiated for.

While a case like this could in theory get to the US Supreme Court, I doubt that it would.  My gut tells me that marriage laws are much more, though not totally, “federal” in Canada than they are in the US.  As such, every US state has its own marriage and divorce laws.  I haven’t yet heard of a state that didn’t allow the consummation of a get to be a prerequisite to the final divorce decree, and can't see how a court would say that enforcing a get clause in a divorce agreement is violating the separation of Church and State.  In these cases, a get isn't a religious issue, it's a contractual one.

As far as your other queries, I don’t know what a get is worth to anyone.  I guess each person has a value they would place on it based upon their own life situation.  One would think that CD$50,000 is a pretty low price to stop a woman from remarrying for 15 years or having children (forever), so I think he got off cheap.  I know that it is common for pre-nups to have get language included these days, and it’s as enforceable as any other part of the pre-nup is. (It would also be interesting to know if the wife got any of the Canadian Bet-dins involved, and what actions if any, they took.)  In the end, wherever the truth lies in that specific divorce, it’s a sad story.