Karon Christine Bales

The applicant wife sought summary judgment to enforce a global financial settlement negotiated at a settlement conference.

The respondent husband argued the agreement was not binding, conditional on independent legal advice (ILA), and unconscionable.

The court found no binding settlement, concluding that the negotiated terms were conditional upon the husband obtaining ILA and executing a formal contract.

The motion for summary judgment was dismissed, and the matter was directed to trial.

The parties separated in 1999 after a 17-year marriage.

Following the wife's death in 2011, her estate obtained a summary judgment order declaring that all property owned by either party at separation was co-owned equally and held in trust.

At trial to determine the equalization payment, the court rejected both experts' extreme interpretations of the summary judgment order.

The court found the order did not impose retroactive trust obligations that would penalize post-separation consumption or require compounding interest.

The court also determined that substantial bonuses paid to the husband by his company post-separation were remuneration for his active management services, not shareholder distributions, and thus were not subject to equal division.

After valuing the respective assets, the court ordered the husband to pay the estate an equalization payment of $7,932,647.50.

In this estate costs endorsement following dismissal of a motion to nullify a settlement and remove the estate trustee during litigation, the court fixed and apportioned costs among family participants and the trustee.

The court held that unfounded allegations of fraud, dishonesty, incompetence, and improper conduct justified elevated costs against the moving party, and partly against a supporting beneficiary, payable from their respective shares of the estate rather than from estate assets generally.

The trustee received full indemnity costs and another responding party received substantial indemnity costs after the court found the motion lacked evidentiary foundation and unnecessarily prolonged the administration of the estate.

Separate partial indemnity adjournment costs were awarded in favour of the supporting beneficiary and the self-represented moving party against the trustee and another responding party personally for unreasonably refusing a consent adjournment.

The appellant father appealed the dismissal of his motion to vary an existing child residency schedule to achieve equal parenting time.

The motion judge found that the father failed to establish a material change in circumstances under the Gordon v. Goertz test, despite the child's advancing age, the mother's remarriage, and the child's learning disability diagnosis.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no error in the motion judge's application of the legal test or her assessment of the evidence.

In an estate administration dispute, the moving party sought to nullify Minutes of Settlement, compel compliance with an earlier directions order, remove the estate trustee during litigation, and appoint a replacement trustee.

The court held the Minutes of Settlement were a binding contract resolving the will challenge, estate administration disputes, and related civil claims, and found no legal basis to set them aside.

Applying the trustee removal principles under the Trustee Act and relevant case law, the court concluded there was no clear necessity to remove the estate trustee during litigation, no evidence that the estate or beneficiaries were endangered, and no proof of actual partiality or maladministration.

The motion was dismissed in its entirety, with costs to be addressed by further written submissions if not agreed.

The respondent brought a motion to dismiss a family law application seeking child and spousal support on the basis that parallel proceedings were already underway in Kenya.

The moving party argued the Ontario proceeding duplicated existing divorce and children’s cases initiated earlier by the responding party in Nairobi and constituted forum shopping.

The court held that at the time the motion was served there were ongoing proceedings between the same parties concerning the same subject matter, satisfying Family Law Rule 16(12)(c)(iii).

The court further found that the attempt to withdraw overlapping claims in Kenya after the motion was served to preserve the Ontario proceeding amounted to an abuse of process.

Although Ontario technically had jurisdiction over support issues, Kenya was clearly the more appropriate forum.

The appellant sought to appeal an interim spousal support order made under the Divorce Act as of right, arguing that section 21(1) of the Divorce Act provides a direct right of appeal that is paramount over the leave requirement in section 19(1)(b) of the Courts of Justice Act.

The Court of Appeal held that section 21(6) of the Divorce Act requires appeals to be asserted according to the ordinary procedure of the province, which in Ontario includes the leave requirement.

The court found no conflict between the federal and provincial legislation, concluding that the doctrine of paramountcy was not engaged and leave to appeal was required.