Andrew Pinto

The respondent husband brought a motion to suspend enforcement of spousal support arrears and stay ongoing support obligations under a final order, citing a material change in circumstances due to job loss and significantly reduced income.

The court applied the Berta test, requiring a strong prima facie case, clear hardship, urgency, and clean hands.

The court found the husband met these criteria, noting his involuntary unemployment, reduced income, and the Family Responsibility Office's enforcement actions causing hardship.

The motion was granted, staying the Support Deduction Order and FRO enforcement of arrears, but an interim monthly payment of $1,500 was ordered from November 1, 2021.

The parties were directed to attend TBST Court to establish a timeline for the Motion to Change.

Following a motion for interim spousal support and disbursements, the parties were unable to agree on costs.

The applicant sought full-indemnity costs of $57,457.39, alleging bad faith by the respondent for failing to provide timely financial disclosure.

The court found the applicant was the more successful party and that the respondent exhibited an element of bad faith regarding financial disclosure.

The court awarded the applicant costs on a substantial indemnity basis, fixed at $46,000.

The court issued supplementary reasons to its prior decision, addressing the applicant's request to strike certain paragraphs from the respondent's affidavit.

The paragraphs in question disclosed information from a Case Conference, which is confidential.

The court affirmed that the confidentiality principles applicable to Settlement Conferences under Rule 17(23) of the Family Law Rules also apply to Case Conferences.

Consequently, specific paragraphs and an exhibit from the respondent's affidavit were ordered to be struck out.

The plaintiffs, Quantum Dealer Financial Corporation and NextGear Capital Corporation, brought a motion for summary judgment against the Guillen Defendants (Claudia Guillen Aracely, Jasmin Ivonne Guillen, 2564523 Ontario Inc., and Garnette C. Williams) and sought default judgment against Toronto Fine Cars and Leasing Inc. and Diego Sebastian Diaz.

The plaintiffs alleged that Diego Diaz, controlling shareholder of Toronto Fine Cars, fraudulently dissipated assets from the dealership by selling financed vehicles and failing to remit proceeds.

They further alleged that the Guillen Defendants assisted in and knowingly received these fraudulently obtained funds, using a newspaper business (Compra Y Venta, operated by 256 Corp.) as a money laundering vehicle.

The court found the Guillen Defendants' explanations for financial transactions and marital breakdown narrative to be incredible and inconsistent, exhibiting "badges of fraud." The court granted default judgment against Diego Diaz and Toronto Fine Cars and summary judgment against the Guillen Defendants, finding them jointly and severally liable for the unremitted proceeds, NSF charges, contractual interest, and punitive damages, based on the doctrines of knowing assistance and knowing receipt.

The respondent mother brought a motion seeking various relief despite a prior order barring her from doing so until she demonstrated compliance with existing court orders.

The court reviewed three areas of alleged non-compliance, including providing website access, arranging joint counselling for the children, and facilitating FaceTime access with the applicant father.

Finding the respondent remained in non-compliance on all three fronts, the court dismissed her motion and awarded the applicant $3,000 in costs on a full-indemnity basis.

Following a motion regarding interim support and control of a business, the parties were unable to agree on costs.

The applicant sought $26,072.49 based on unaccepted offers to settle, while the respondent argued for costs to be deferred to trial, claiming mixed success.

The court found the applicant was the successful party and declined to defer costs.

The court awarded the applicant $17,000 in costs on an elevated partial indemnity scale of 66%, reflecting condemnation of the respondent's failure to adhere to previous court orders.

The applicant wife brought a motion for interim spousal support and interim disbursements.

The parties were in a six-year marriage and the respondent husband is a high-income earner residing in Germany with significant wealth.

The court applied the Spousal Support Advisory Guidelines for high-income earners, imputing an annual investment income of over $4 million to the respondent based on a 12.3% rate of return.

The court ordered the respondent to pay a lump-sum of $326,315 in uncharacterized interim spousal support and $186,000 in interim disbursements, noting the latter had already been satisfied by a prior without-prejudice payment.

The applicant wife brought a motion seeking an order for the respondent husband to retrieve personal items from the garage of the former matrimonial home.

The respondent husband opposed, expressing concern that other unidentified personal items in the home might be discarded.

The court found the applicant's proposal, which involved identifying items from photographs, to be reasonable and consistent with prior orders, including an interim exclusive possession order and a consent order outlining a retrieval process.

The court dismissed the respondent's concerns as unsubstantiated, noting the long separation period and the son's evidence that all the father's belongings were in the garage.

The motion was granted, and costs were awarded to the applicant.

The moving party brought a motion seeking relief for the responding party's flagrant breaches of a final consent order, including failure to pay child and spousal support.

The responding party, a wealthy businessman, did not attend the motion and sent hostile messages to the moving party.

The court found the responding party in breach and applied Rule 1(8) of the Family Law Rules, ordering him to pay all arrears and provide security within 72 hours.

The court also imposed a $1,000 daily penalty for continued non-compliance and awarded full indemnity costs due to the responding party's bad faith.

The applicant sought child support, retroactive spousal support, and supervised parenting time.

The central issue was determining the respondent's income, which the applicant alleged was hidden in a complex web of international corporations, including one fraudulently transferred to her name.

The court found the respondent was the beneficial owner of the corporations, imputed his income at approximately $7 million annually, and ordered $20,000 per month in both child and spousal support.

The court also ordered supervised parenting time due to the respondent's history of deceit and the risk of child abduction to India or the UAE, which are not signatories to the Hague Convention.

In a family law proceeding, the respondent wife brought a motion to compel further financial disclosure from the applicant husband's sister, who was a named tenant in common on the matrimonial home.

The wife claimed the husband was the true beneficial owner of the sister's 50% interest and sought a constructive and resulting trust.

The court ordered the sister to produce various documents, including a 2014 Notice of Assessment, a mortgage application, a police report regarding stolen cash, proof of loan repayment, joint bank statements, and housing authority renewals, finding them relevant to determining the true source of the funds used to purchase the property.

The wife was awarded costs of $3,500.

The respondent father brought a motion seeking the resumption of in-person parenting time with his children.

The court had previously adjourned the motion and ordered the respondent to provide specific evidence regarding his compliance with medical recommendations, completion of a conditional sentence, and conduct during supervised virtual visits.

The respondent filed his materials late, submitted an unsworn affidavit, and failed to provide the required evidence of compliance with medical recommendations.

Finding that the respondent lacked insight and engaged in inappropriate communications with the children during virtual visits, the court dismissed the motion and limited his supervised videoconference parenting time to once a week.

The parties brought competing motions in a high-conflict family law dispute.

The applicant sought control of the family business, AKA Creative Inc., and the return of his belongings, arguing the respondent breached a prior ex-parte order.

The respondent sought interim child support, spousal support, and proportionate sharing of special expenses based on an imputed income of $300,000 for the applicant.

The court granted the applicant's motion, finding the respondent had not respected the prior order and that the applicant, as majority shareholder, should manage the business.

The court partially granted the respondent's motion, imputing an income of $50,000 to the applicant and $18,720 to the respondent, and ordered go-forward child support and proportionate sharing of private school expenses.

The applicant brought a motion for summary judgment seeking to dismiss the respondent's claims for equalization and spousal support following an 18-day marriage.

The respondent alleged the applicant used her credit to purchase a property and lied about his previous marital status.

The court dismissed the motion, finding the applicant failed to provide basic financial disclosure or clearly refute the respondent's allegations, leaving genuine issues for trial.

Costs of $5,000 were awarded to the respondent.

The respondent husband brought a motion for the interim sale of the matrimonial home, citing financial hardship due to reduced income as a taxi driver during the pandemic.

The applicant wife, who had interim exclusive possession of the home and resided there with their three children, opposed the motion.

The court dismissed the motion, finding that the husband's financial hardship was not sufficiently compelling to justify a forced sale at the interim stage, especially given the vulnerability of the wife and children and the uncertainty surrounding the husband's financial evidence.

The plaintiff moved to enforce a settlement agreement purportedly reached via email correspondence between counsel following a full-day mediation in a wrongful dismissal action.

The defendant argued the emails only represented an 'agreement to agree' and that the settlement was conditional on Board approval of an additional stock option grant, which was denied.

The court found that the parties had agreed on all essential terms and that the defendant's Board had no reasonable basis to decline the stock option grant.

The motion was granted, and the settlement agreement was ordered to be enforced.

The parties brought competing urgent motions regarding the choice of school for their 7-year-old twin boys for Grade 2.

The applicant mother sought to enroll the children in an English secular school, arguing their English skills were weak and impacting their safety and relationships.

The respondent father sought to enroll them in a French Catholic school, consistent with their separation agreement, to maintain their Francophone heritage.

The court found that it was in the best interests of the children to attend the French Catholic school, noting that they would naturally acquire English living in Toronto and that the previous agreement between the parties remained appropriate.

The plaintiff homeowners sued the defendant contractors for breach of contract regarding a backyard renovation project, alleging fundamental breach due to delays, defective workmanship, and misplaced helical piles.

The court found no fundamental breach by the defendants, noting that the deficiencies were either corrected or easily remediable, and that the delays were largely due to the permit process.

Instead, the court held that the plaintiffs breached the contract by refusing to allow the defendants to return to the site to complete the work and fix the deficiencies.

The plaintiffs' action was dismissed, the defendants were awarded damages for the unpaid balance of the contract, and the corporate veil was not pierced.

The respondent father brought a motion to vary a final consent order on an interim basis to increase his parenting time with the parties' 12-year-old daughter to an equal week-about schedule.

The applicant mother opposed the motion, arguing the father failed to prove a material change in circumstances.

The court found that a review provision in the final order allowed for a review without proving a material change.

Relying on the first of two conflicting Voice of the Child reports, the court determined that an equal parenting schedule was in the child's best interests and granted the father's motion.

The applicant father brought two motions: one to adjourn his pending parenting motion until a therapeutic counsellor's report was completed, and a Wagg motion seeking disclosure of the Crown brief from his criminal proceedings (where he was acquitted of sexual assault charges involving the children).

The respondent mother sought to have both motions dismissed.

The court granted the father's request to adjourn the parenting motion to avoid delay and costs if it needed to be heard later.

The court also granted the Wagg motion, finding it would be unfair to proceed without the documents and that the Attorney General had already screened them.