Katherine A. Cooligan

This decision addresses interim motions in a family law dispute between Asghedom Ehdego and Rajpreet Puni regarding the relocation of their child, Leena, from Ottawa to Richmond, BC, and the appropriate interim parenting schedule.

The court denied the mother's request to relocate with the child and granted the father's request for a shared 2-2-5-5 parenting schedule.

The court also addressed issues of child support, imputation of income, and deferred the issue of occupational rent to trial.

The decision provides a detailed analysis of the parties' competing evidence on parenting roles, the child's connections to Ottawa and BC, and the legal principles governing interim relocation and parenting orders.

This costs decision follows a 15-day family law trial concerning parenting, support, and equalization.

The court found that the father, Salvatore Ginese, had engaged in severe parental alienation and coercive control, amounting to bad faith conduct.

Although the mother, Rita Fadel, did not obtain the custody reversal she sought, the court awarded her full recovery costs for the trial due to the father's egregious behaviour, but not for the entire proceeding due to mixed success on financial issues.

The father was ordered to pay $165,000 in costs, including the cost of an expert whose involvement was rendered futile by the father's conduct.

The applicant mother and respondent father brought an interim motion concerning parenting, decision-making responsibility, and retroactive child support.

The court addressed allegations of family violence and the admissibility of surreptitious recordings, ultimately finding the recordings highly suspicious and giving them no weight.

The court ordered a phased increase in the father's parenting time, moving towards greater involvement, and established a joint decision-making framework with the mother having final say on most issues, but requiring joint consent for residence changes, school choice, and therapeutic services.

Retroactive child support arrears were calculated with a deduction for the father's contributions to housing.

This is Part 3 of a trial decision concerning property and support issues.

The court addressed the mother's current income, section 7 expenses for the children, and spousal support calculations, following directions from a previous decision.

The father failed to provide requested financial information, leading the court to base its decision on the mother's submissions.

The court accepted the mother's calculations for section 7 expenses and spousal support, using gross amounts for spousal support.

The decision reconciled child and spousal support arrears, setting off amounts against equalization payment and occupational rent previously ordered, resulting in a net amount owed by the father to the mother.

Ongoing child and spousal support orders were made.

This is Part 2 of a trial decision addressing financial issues in a family law matter, following a previous decision on parenting.

The court determined the equalization of net family property, occupation rent, child support, and spousal support.

The mother was awarded an equalization payment and occupation rent.

The court found the mother's mental health decline, caused by the father's parental alienation, was a significant basis for compensatory spousal support, though the quantum for 2023 onwards was deferred pending further submissions.

Child support obligations and s. 7 expenses were also determined, with adjustments made for reasonableness and necessity.

A divorce was granted.

The parties separated after a 19-year marriage characterized by the father's coercive control and family violence.

Following separation, the father engaged in severe alienating behaviours, resulting in the four children completely rejecting their mother.

The mother sought a custody reversal for the two youngest children.

The court found the father entirely responsible for the severe alienation but concluded that a custody reversal would not be in the children's best interests due to the mother's emotional fragility and the high risk of further trauma.

The children remained in the father's primary care with strict conditions, including independent communication rights for the mother with schools and health professionals.

This is a costs endorsement following a dismissed contempt motion.

The Respondent father brought a contempt motion against the Applicant mother for withholding access to their children.

The father failed to attend the final hearing of the contempt motion, leading to its dismissal.

The mother sought substantial indemnity costs in the amount of $44,732.89.

The court awarded partial indemnity costs of $25,000 to the mother, considering the father's financial situation, the understandable actions of both parties given the children's wishes, and the principle that prohibitive costs should not bar access to justice in family matters.

The respondent mother brought a motion at the opening of a family law trial to determine the admissibility of evidence regarding the applicant father's professional misconduct as a police officer.

The father argued that the Police Services Act created an absolute privilege over all information related to his disciplinary proceedings.

The court held that while documents prepared for the disciplinary process and testimony from those involved are inadmissible and non-compellable, the underlying facts of the misconduct, the charges, and the outcome are provable facts at trial.

The court also rejected arguments that the father had waived privilege or that the Divorce Act paramountcy overrode the provincial statute.

The applicant father brought a motion for interim in-person parenting time with his two-year-old daughter pending a trial on jurisdiction and wrongful removal.

The father sought to exercise parenting time in Turkey, where he was residing, while the respondent mother opposed any travel outside Canada due to fears the father would abduct the child to Dubai.

The court granted the father's request for a four-week parenting time period in Turkey, finding it in the child's best interests to maintain a relationship with her father.

To mitigate the risk of abduction, the court imposed stringent safeguards, including requiring the father to post $200,000 in security, surrender his passports, and consent to a UAE court order granting the mother sole custody.

The parties brought a motion for directions to determine whether property excluded under their cohabitation agreement could be traced into other assets and remain excluded from equalization.

The applicant argued that the agreement did not explicitly provide for tracing, while the respondent argued that the creation of a new category of excluded property implicitly included tracing rights.

The court applied principles of contractual interpretation and examined the factual matrix, concluding that the mutual and objective intention of the parties was to exclude pre-marriage property and any property traced from it.

The court also ruled on the admissibility of affidavits sworn by the respondent's former counsel and a law clerk.

The appellant mother challenged the Ontario Superior Court's jurisdiction over her youngest child, who was born in the U.S. and had never been to Canada, in the context of temporary parenting orders.

The Court of Appeal affirmed the motion judge's finding of jurisdiction, holding that the Superior Court had subject-matter jurisdiction under the Divorce Act because the father was ordinarily resident in Ontario.

Furthermore, the mother had attorned to the court's jurisdiction by actively participating in the merits of the underlying motions without formally challenging jurisdiction.

The appeal was dismissed, with no order as to costs due to the mother's reliance on public assistance.

The respondent mother brought a motion for security for costs against the applicant father, a non-resident of Ontario with no assets in the jurisdiction, prior to a trial determining jurisdiction and the return of their child to Dubai.

The court found that exceptional circumstances existed to justify the order, including the significant financial imbalance between the parties, the father's highly mobile lifestyle and liquid assets, and his conduct in over-litigating the matter.

The court ordered the father to post $150,000 as security for costs to ensure the mother could fully participate in the upcoming trial.

The father brought an application under the Hague Convention for the return of the parties' two children to Adelaide, Australia.

The mother had travelled to Ontario with the children for a temporary visit but failed to return them.

The court found that the children were wrongfully retained in April 2020 and that their habitual residence immediately prior to the retention was Australia.

The court rejected the mother's argument that the 11-year-old child's views should be considered as an exception to return.

The application was granted and the children were ordered to be returned to Australia.

The parties returned to court to address temporary parenting arrangements and the appointment of a section 30 assessor.

The father and paternal grandparents sought expanded, in-person parenting time during the summer, while the mother opposed in-person visits and requested that the assessment be conducted entirely virtually.

The court found that virtual visits had been positive and ordered the mother to travel to Ottawa with the children for the summer to facilitate graduated in-person visits.

The court also appointed the father's proposed assessor, requiring in-person observation visits due to the complex family dynamics and allegations of domestic violence.

The respondent estate brought a motion on the first day of trial to amend its Answer to include the equitable defence of laches against the applicant's claim to set aside a marriage contract.

The applicant opposed the motion, arguing that laches is not a legally tenable defence to a statutory claim under section 56(4) of the Family Law Act and that the amendment would cause uncompensable prejudice.

The court granted the motion, finding that a claim for declaratory relief under section 56(4) is equitable in nature and can be defended by laches.

The court also found that any disadvantage to the applicant could be compensated by costs, an adjournment, or trial management.

The appellant mother appealed a motion judge's final order asserting jurisdiction over the parties' fourth child under the Divorce Act.

The Divisional Court raised the issue of its own jurisdiction to hear the appeal.

The court concluded that because the order appealed from was made under the federal Divorce Act, rather than an Ontario statute, the appeal route lies to the Court of Appeal under section 6(1) of the Courts of Justice Act, not the Divisional Court.

Applying the Dunnington test, the court declined to dismiss the appeal and instead transferred it to the Court of Appeal.

The moving parties sought leave to appeal from the decisions of Corthorn J. and Shelston J. The Divisional Court dismissed the motion for leave to appeal in writing and awarded costs of $7,500 to the responding party.

The respondent father brought a motion for contempt against the applicant mother for withholding access to their two teenage daughters.

The mother had withheld access following allegations of physical abuse by the father, which were investigated by CAS and OPP.

The court previously ordered access to resume in Ottawa and for the family to engage in reunification counselling.

The father, now unemployed, requested that access resume in Bracebridge as per the final order, citing financial inability to travel to Ottawa.

The court declined to order the children to travel to Bracebridge, finding it not in their best interests at this early stage of reunification counselling.

The contempt motion was adjourned to be dealt with at the Motion to Change.

The moving party father brought a motion for contempt against the responding party mother for withholding access to their two children since June 2020.

The mother had withheld access following allegations of physical abuse made by one of the children, which led to child protection and police investigations that concluded without charges.

The children, aged 14 and 12, expressed a strong reluctance to travel 10 hours for access visits at the father's residence.

The court deferred the contempt motion for 90 days and ordered immediate reunification counselling.

The court also ordered interim access to take place in the children's home city for 10 hours every other weekend.

Following a seven-day trial regarding custody, relocation, and support, the respondent sought costs of $80,351 on a substantial recovery basis.

The applicant argued for each party to bear their own costs due to divided success.

The court found the respondent was the more successful party overall, having succeeded on the central issues of sole custody and relocation to Serbia.

However, the applicant had some success on spousal support and imputing income.

Considering divided success, the parties' respective financial positions, and the disparity in time spent by counsel, the court ordered the applicant to pay costs of $37,500, to be set off against $14,000 in retroactive spousal support owed by the respondent.