A. Pengelley

The moving party father brought a motion to reduce his child support and section 7 expense obligations under a temporary order, alleging a material change in circumstances due to a motor vehicle accident that temporarily reduced his income.

The court found that the father's injury and resulting inability to work were temporary, lasting only a few months, and did not constitute a significant or long-lasting change.

The court emphasized that variations of interim orders should be rare and require a substantial change in circumstances.

The motion was dismissed, and costs were awarded to the responding party mother on a partial indemnity basis.

The applicant mother brought a motion to compel the respondent father to provide direct access to his drug test results, which were required for his supervised access to their children.

The father consented to the substantive relief but opposed costs, alleging that the mother's counsel's staff acted fraudulently in contacting the testing lab.

The court found the fraud allegations to be unfounded and based on conflicting information.

Because the father's consent was not a compromise and he made serious, unsubstantiated allegations of deceit against opposing counsel, the court awarded the mother substantial indemnity costs for both the motion and the costs hearing.

Costs were determined following competing family law motions concerning supervision and expansion of parental access to a child.

The applicant grandmother sought to change the supervisor of the father’s access, while the mother sought unsupervised staged access.

The court had dismissed the applicant’s motion and granted the mother’s cross‑motion for unsupervised access.

Applying Rule 24 of the Family Law Rules, the court held that costs presumptively follow the event and found no bad faith or unreasonable conduct sufficient to displace that presumption.

Partial indemnity costs were therefore awarded to each successful respondent for their respective motions.