Wayne Crawford

The parties separated after a high-conflict marriage.

The children resided primarily with the mother and became estranged from the father.

The father sought a 90-day custody reversal to repair the relationship, alleging parental alienation, while the mother sought to relocate with the children to Arizona.

The court found the children were unjustifiably rejecting the father and that the mother had failed to facilitate their relationship.

The court denied the custody reversal but ordered joint custody with a strict access schedule for the father, and denied the mother's mobility application.

The court also resolved financial issues, valuing the father's professional building at $600,000 and ordering him to pay retroactive and ongoing child and spousal support.

The parties separated after a nine-year marriage during which they both worked at a motel owned by the respondent.

The applicant sought equalization of net family property and spousal support.

The court determined the date of separation value of the motel and the integrated matrimonial home, rejecting the applicant's claims for occupation rent and cottage carrying costs.

The court ordered the respondent to pay an equalization payment of $659,833.64.

The court also found the applicant entitled to compensatory spousal support due to economic disadvantage from the marriage breakdown, awarding a lump sum of $44,412 based on the Spousal Support Advisory Guidelines.

At trial management conferences in a family property and spousal support dispute, the court addressed admissibility and case-management issues for an upcoming lengthy trial involving valuation of a motel business, equalization, and retroactive spousal support.

The court clarified that the applicant's claim concerning the motel was confined to equalization and excluded ownership, oppression, partition and sale, rent-income, and contractual enforcement theories.

The court held that an affidavit from a non-attending witness from related civil proceedings was not admissible as trial evidence under the Family Law Rules.

The admissibility of a business valuator originally retained by one side and later approached by the other was deferred to the trial judge, given its central importance and potential mistrial consequences.

Detailed directions were made respecting witness lists, will-say statements, translations, financial disclosure, trial briefs, and further trial management.

The plaintiffs, selling shareholders in a family-owned group of companies, brought an action against the non-selling shareholders, the companies' lawyers, and accountants.

They alleged breach of fiduciary duty, oppression, and knowing assistance arising from a share redemption transaction.

The plaintiffs claimed the defendants failed to disclose material information regarding the potential sale of a core asset to a third party at a higher value.

The court dismissed the action, finding that the share redemption was a product of self-interested negotiations where both sides had independent advice.

No ad hoc fiduciary duty was owed by the non-selling shareholders, lawyers, or accountants to the plaintiffs, and the plaintiffs' expectations were not reasonable under the oppression remedy.