Jonathan Solomon

Following a family law trial where the applicant mother was largely successful on issues of primary parenting, residence, and decision-making, the court determined the issue of costs.

The respondent father had some success on minor issues, and both parties had behaved unreasonably at times.

The court found the applicant was the largely successful party and awarded her costs of $13,895 on a partial indemnity basis.

The respondent father brought a motion seeking expanded interim parenting time with the parties' 3.5-year-old child and the use of Our Family Wizard for communications.

The mother agreed to the communication app but disputed the father's request for unsupervised parenting time, proposing instead that visits be supervised by the paternal grandmother.

The court found that it was in the child's best interests to move the father's parenting time outside of the supervised exchange centre to allow for a more natural relationship to develop.

The court ordered unsupervised weekly visits, initially limited to two hours and then expanding to three hours, with exchanges to occur at the exchange centre.

Creditors who had provided legal services and financing to an insolvent debtor sought declarations of a solicitor’s lien and a salvage lien against funds arising from the sale of a matrimonial home.

The debtor had filed a Notice of Intention and proposal under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, triggering a stay of proceedings.

The court held the stay should not be lifted for the alleged salvage lien because the creditor had failed to properly perfect any assignment of execution debts or security interests.

Although the stay was lifted to consider potential solicitor’s liens, the court declined to grant charging orders, finding that equitable considerations weighed against relief where the lawyers failed to secure available mortgage protection and delayed seeking the lien while other creditors obtained competing claims.

The motion for liens and charging orders was denied.