Jerome Craigs Gardner

The Ontario Court of Justice granted a motion to strike the respondent’s pleadings in a family law matter involving decision-making responsibility, parenting time, and child support for a 16-year-old child.

The respondent failed to comply with court orders to provide financial documents and did not comply with the Family Law Rules regarding settlement and trial management conferences.

The court found the respondent’s non-compliance justified striking pleadings to allow the matter to proceed uncontested, emphasizing the need for finality and the applicant’s right to a just resolution.

The court declined to permit limited participation by the respondent after striking pleadings due to his history of non-compliance and absence.

The respondent brought a motion seeking the partition and sale of the former matrimonial home prior to trial and the return of personal items.

The applicant opposed, arguing prejudice to her family law claims and disputing ownership of some items.

The court granted the order for partition and sale, with net proceeds to be held in trust, finding no unfair prejudice to the applicant's family law claims given the trust arrangement.

The court also ordered the return of most personal items, deferring the dispute over two specific pictures to trial.

The applicant sought to vary an interim parenting order to implement week-about summer parenting time and change the child's school to accommodate his new out-of-town employment.

The respondent opposed both requests, citing her work schedule, the child's stability, and financial constraints.

The court dismissed the applicant's motion, finding no compelling change in circumstances to warrant varying the summer parenting time and determining that changing the child's school was not in the child's best interests, as it primarily served the applicant's convenience rather than the child's well-being.

A motion to change regarding child support and section 7 expenses for two children from a marriage that ended in 2013.

The applicant father sought to vary the terms of a prior separation agreement and court order, proposing either a fixed monthly sum or a proportionate payment structure for extracurricular expenses.

The respondent mother sought a fixed monthly amount for extracurricular activities.

The court found that the children's extracurricular activities at an elite competitive level constituted extraordinary expenses within the meaning of the Child Support Guidelines.

The court fixed annual section 7 expenses at $16,000 and ordered the father to pay $400 per child per month, with arrears to be repaid at $200 monthly.

The court also ordered the mother to provide annual accounting of expenses.

The Applicant sought to change an order regarding the sale of the matrimonial home to allow his girlfriend, a real estate agent, to co-list the property, citing concerns about the asking price.

The Respondent sought sole authority to instruct the real estate agent.

The Applicant also moved to sell artwork via auction and household contents via garage sale to declutter and generate funds.

The court granted the Respondent sole authority for the matrimonial home sale, finding the Applicant uncooperative and his valuation concerns unsubstantiated.

The court dismissed the Applicant's motion to sell artwork and contents, ruling it lacked authority under s. 9 of the Family Law Act without an existing equalization order.

No costs were awarded, as both parties were found to have behaved unreasonably.

The plaintiff accounting firm brought an action to recover unpaid professional fees for work performed for the defendants (a numbered company operating a resort lodge and its sole shareholders) in 2012 and 2013.

The defendants asserted a fixed-rate agreement but failed to present any evidence to support this claim.

The court accepted the plaintiff's evidence, which included signed engagement letters and regular invoices, establishing that work was billed at standard hourly rates.

The court found the plaintiff had proven its claim for $44,052.72, with the individual defendants personally liable for $34,939.21 of that amount based on a specific engagement letter.

Additionally, a motion for recusal brought by one of the defendants at the outset of trial, based on the judge's prior stay at the lodge and presiding over an unrelated motion, was dismissed as there was no perceived partiality or link to the current case.

The applicant mother brought a motion to change a 2006 custody order, seeking custody of both children, supervised access, and child support.

The respondent father initially opposed the motion but on the trial date abandoned his positions on undue hardship and travel costs, agreeing to pay child support for one child.

The court ordered the father to pay child support for both children from September 2011 to April 2012 in staggered amounts, and ongoing support for one child from May 2012, plus monthly payments toward arrears.

The mother was successful in her application and awarded partial indemnity costs.

The responding spouse moved for a final order enforcing a settlement allegedly reached through correspondence between counsel resolving multiple family law issues including spousal support, property division, and possession of the matrimonial home.

The applicant spouse argued that the draft Minutes of Settlement should also include a term requiring the respondent to designate her as an irrevocable beneficiary under his group life insurance policy.

The court held that the correspondence exchanged between counsel constituted a complete and binding settlement agreement as of March 25, 2013, and that the life insurance term had never been negotiated or agreed upon.

The court rejected the attempt to insert additional terms into the settlement and held that it lacked authority under s. 34 of the Family Law Act to add such a provision to the final order.

The settlement was therefore enforced as reflected in the correspondence, excluding the life insurance requirement.

Following the breakdown of a ten‑year marriage, the parties proceeded to trial regarding custody, access, child support, spousal support, and equalization of net family property.

Evidence established that the father exhibited significant paranoid ideation and suspicious behaviour affecting his parenting and relationship with the children, while refusing recommended psychological treatment.

The court accepted the Office of the Children’s Lawyer’s concerns that these behaviours negatively affected the children and blurred appropriate parent‑child boundaries.

Sole custody was granted to the mother, with reduced and conditional access for the father contingent on psychotherapy and subject to possible supervision by the Office of the Children’s Lawyer.

The court also addressed equalization, child support obligations, and dismissed the father’s claim for spousal support.

A motion to change a prior custody order under the Children’s Law Reform Act was brought in relation to the residence and parenting arrangement of a child who had historically lived with the maternal grandmother and mother.

The father sought a substantial increase in parenting time and effectively a shared or primary residence arrangement, relying in part on a prior Office of the Children’s Lawyer report recommending that the child reside with him.

The court held that the father failed to establish a material change in circumstances affecting the child’s best interests as required by s. 29 of the Children’s Law Reform Act and the principles articulated in Gordon v. Goertz.

While the father had undertaken counselling and ceased marijuana use, the court found ongoing concerns regarding judgment, past drug use in the child’s presence, criminal convictions, and instability in his personal and financial circumstances.

The court varied the order only to clarify joint custody and impose safety and substance‑use conditions on the father’s access while maintaining the child’s primary residence with the mother and grandmother.

The responding parent was alleged to be in contempt of a final custody and access order providing for shared parenting on an alternating weekly basis.

The moving parent claimed the child was withheld during scheduled parenting time over the Christmas holiday.

The court held that civil contempt requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt that a clear order was deliberately and wilfully disobeyed.

While a child’s refusal may complicate compliance, a parent must take reasonable steps to ensure the child follows the order.

The court found contempt established for a single incident where the responding parent failed to take reasonable steps to facilitate the child’s attendance with the other parent, but not for subsequent periods because the moving parent made no further attempts to exercise access.

The father brought a motion seeking permission to enrol the parties’ children in a competitive lacrosse league despite a prior order requiring the other parent’s consent for competitive extracurricular activities.

The mother refused consent based on the strict wording of the order.

The court held that the best interests of the children required a reasonable approach to withholding consent, particularly where participation would not interfere with the other parent’s parenting time.

Finding the children would benefit from participating at a higher level and that the proposed schedule would not infringe on the mother’s parenting time, the court granted the requested order.

In a family law motion concerning parenting decision-making, the father sought permission to enrol the parties’ twin children in a community lacrosse association.

On consent of both parties, the court issued an endorsement permitting the enrolment for the 2012 season.

The order required that all lacrosse-related activities, including practices, meetings, and tournaments, occur only during the father’s parenting time.

Reasons for the endorsement were to follow.