Adam Prewer

The moving party sought leave to appeal an order transferring a matter from the Family Law Team to the Civil Law Team in Toronto.

The Divisional Court dismissed the motion, finding that while there was good reason to doubt the motion judge's finding on jurisdiction, the decision to have the matter addressed by the Civil Law Team was an exercise of administrative discretion that did not raise a matter of such importance to warrant leave to appeal.

This endorsement concerns the approval of a settlement involving a party under disability and directions for the appointment of a litigation guardian.

The Public Guardian and Trustee (PGT), acting as statutory guardian of property for the respondent wife, moved for approval of Minutes of Settlement covering all issues except divorce.

The court approved the settlement under Rule 7.08 of the Rules of Civil Procedure, finding the evidentiary requirements met.

Additionally, the court provided directions for the appointment of a litigation guardian for the respondent to address the outstanding divorce application, clarifying that the PGT's statutory jurisdiction does not extend to consenting to a divorce.

The decision outlines the procedure for appointing a litigation guardian under Rule 7 of the Rules of Civil Procedure, as the Family Law Rules are silent on this matter.

The appellant sought to appeal a costs award from a family law arbitration concerning retroactive and prospective spousal support.

The court addressed the jurisdictional question of whether leave was required for an appeal of a costs award from an arbitration, finding it was not required where the arbitration agreement did not stipulate it.

Applying appellate standards of review, the court upheld the arbitrator's decision, finding no errors in law, palpable and overriding errors of fact, or errors in principle regarding the determination of the successful party or the finding of unreasonable conduct by both parties.

The appeal was dismissed with costs to the respondent.

In a family law proceeding involving cryptocurrency assets, the applicant brought a long motion regarding disclosure.

The respondents sought leave under Rule 39.02(2) of the Rules of Civil Procedure to file an expert affidavit after having already cross-examined the applicant on her motion materials.

The court dismissed the request for leave, finding the respondents failed to show the evidence responded to a matter raised on cross-examination or provide an adequate explanation for the delay.

The court also ruled on several refusals from questioning, ordering the respondents to answer some questions while upholding other refusals.

The applicant brought a motion seeking the production of a corporate server (Decentral Server) for disclosure purposes, arguing the respondents had not adequately searched it.

This request had been previously dismissed by Justice Kiteley.

The applicant sought to revisit the prior decision, asserting new material facts, including the respondent's alleged failure to comply with an offer to conduct further searches and new expert evidence on e-discovery methods.

The court dismissed the applicant's motion, finding that the alleged new facts were either not fundamentally different from what was previously argued or could have been discovered with reasonable diligence at the time of the original motion.

The court affirmed that interlocutory orders are binding unless new, material, and previously undiscoverable facts are presented.

The applicant sought an urgent order to compel the respondent's attendance for cross-examination on an affidavit, following the respondent's refusal to attend due to the applicant's intention to have an expert assist counsel.

The court addressed the respondent's unilateral refusal to attend and the issue of whether leave is required for an expert to assist counsel at an out-of-court examination.

The court found that counsel do not need leave to bring assistants, including experts, to examinations, and that the onus to exclude such individuals lies with the party alleging prejudice.

The respondent's motion to exclude the expert was dismissed, and the respondent was ordered to attend cross-examination.

The applicant mother brought a motion for interim child support against both the biological father and the step-father who stood in the place of a parent.

The biological father agreed to pay a monthly amount based on his reported income.

The step-father argued the motion should be adjourned until the biological father's true income could be determined, alleging intentional underemployment.

The court refused to adjourn the motion, finding it contrary to the child's best interests.

The court ordered the step-father to pay $1,609 per month in interim child support, calculating his obligation using a 'top-up' method based on the parents' combined incomes.

The court also granted in part the step-father's cross-motion for financial disclosure from the biological father, ordering production of tax returns and investment statements but finding requests for corporate valuations and tracing to be disproportionate.

The moving party sought leave to appeal an order of Kiteley J. dated December 10, 2020.

The Divisional Court dismissed the motion for leave to appeal.

Costs were awarded to the corporate respondents in the fixed amount of $5,000, while no costs were awarded to the individual respondent as no costs outline was filed.

The applicant's motion for disclosure was dismissed, making the corporate respondents presumptively entitled to costs.

However, the court found that the corporate respondents behaved unreasonably by relying on an inadmissible affidavit and failing to respond to the court's directions regarding their conduct.

As a result, the court discounted their partial indemnity costs by 25% and ordered the applicant to pay $7,500 in costs.

The applicant brought a motion for leave to appeal an interim order.

The Divisional Court dismissed the motion for leave to appeal and awarded costs of $5,000 to the corporate respondents.

The applicant brought a motion seeking production of a lawyer's file, arguing she had an explicit or implicit solicitor-client relationship with him, or alternatively, that the respondents waived privilege.

The lawyer had acted for the respondent and the corporate respondents during a period when the parties were allegedly involved in a joint family venture involving cryptocurrency.

The court found the applicant failed to establish a solicitor-client relationship, as the few documents she relied on were insufficient to show she was led to believe he was her lawyer.

The court also found no evidence that the respondents waived privilege.

Although the motion was dismissed, the court struck significant portions of the respondent's affidavit for relying on inadmissible hearsay in breach of the Family Law Rules.

The applicant sought costs following a successful motion for interim spousal support and disclosure of cryptocurrency holdings.

The court reviewed the parties' offers to settle and found the applicant beat her offer regarding spousal support and met her offer regarding native file format disclosure.

The applicant was awarded costs of $104,533 on a substantial recovery basis.

The corporate respondents were successful on a discrete issue regarding a server and were awarded costs of $12,600 on a partial indemnity basis, to be paid from the applicant's costs award.

The moving party sought an extension of time to seek leave to appeal a $40,000 costs award arising from an unsuccessful motion to remove the responding party's counsel.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the motion for lack of jurisdiction, holding that the underlying order was interlocutory and therefore appealable only to the Divisional Court with leave.

Furthermore, the costs award was under the $50,000 threshold, which also directs the appeal to the Divisional Court.

The moving party sought an extension of time to file a notice of motion for leave to appeal a $40,000 costs order.

The responding party opposed the motion, arguing that the Court of Appeal lacked jurisdiction because the appeal properly belonged before the Divisional Court, either because the underlying order was interlocutory or because the costs order was for less than $50,000.

The single motion judge concluded that decisions on jurisdictional questions must generally be made by a panel of three judges and directed the motion to be placed before a panel.

The appellant appealed from a trial judge's orders relating to the division of net family property and spousal support in a family law matter.

The principal issues were: (1) whether the trial judge erred in discounting a $5,000,000 promissory note by 90% for equalization purposes, where the note was signed on behalf of the appellant's holding company in favour of his parents for a condominium project loan; and (2) whether the trial judge erred in awarding indefinite spousal support.

The Court of Appeal upheld both decisions, finding that the trial judge properly applied the law regarding contingent liabilities and exercised reasonable discretion in awarding indefinite spousal support based on the respondent's health issues and the compensatory nature of support.

The applicant mother brought a motion for temporary child and spousal support and a family law restraining order against the respondent father.

The respondent had deliberately failed to provide court-ordered financial disclosure for four years, complicating the assessment of his income.

The court preferred the applicant's expert's preliminary assessment of the respondent's income at $890,000 for 2018, rejecting the respondent's lower self-reported figures.

Consequently, the court ordered temporary monthly table child support of $13,502 and spousal support of $12,800 (low range of SSAG), both retroactive to January 1, 2018.

The parties' proportionate shares for section 7 expenses were set at 75% for the respondent and 25% for the applicant.

A family law restraining order was also issued against the respondent, mirroring prior probation terms, due to the applicant's legitimate fear for her safety, supported by the respondent's history of violence and subsequent breaches of orders involving a second spouse.