Katherine Cooligan

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.

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 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 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 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.

The parties, who were held hostage in Afghanistan for five years, are engaged in a high-conflict family law dispute.

The mother previously obtained an interim order allowing her to relocate to Pennsylvania with the children, but instead moved to Virginia and cut off all contact between the children and their father and paternal grandparents.

The father, having been acquitted of criminal charges related to alleged abuse, brought a motion to have the children returned to Ontario and for custody or access.

The paternal grandparents also sought access.

The court declined to order the immediate return of the children to Ontario on an interim basis due to conflicting evidence, but ordered supervised virtual access for the father and virtual access for the paternal grandparents.

The court also affirmed its jurisdiction over the parties' fourth child born in the US, and ordered a section 30 parenting assessment.

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.

The applicant father brought a motion to have the parties' three-year-old child enrolled in a junior kindergarten French immersion program, while the respondent mother preferred a French-only program.

The court found that neither parent was francophone and that the father, a unilingual anglophone, would be marginalized from the child's education in a French-only school.

Given concerns about the mother's tendency to exclude the father, the court determined it was in the child's best interests to be enrolled in French immersion to ensure both parents could fully participate in her education.

The applicant sought costs of $34,160 on a full recovery basis against a third-party witness who unsuccessfully opposed a motion to be questioned prior to trial.

The third party argued he was a non-party and sought his own costs.

The court found the third party was a party for the purposes of the motion under the Family Law Rules and that the applicant was the successful party.

Applying principles of proportionality and considering the respective offers to settle, the court awarded the applicant costs fixed at $10,000.

The applicant father and respondent mother separated while living in Belgrade, Serbia.

The father returned to Ottawa and sought sole custody and an order returning their five-year-old daughter to Canada.

The mother sought sole custody and permission to remain in Belgrade with the child.

The court awarded sole custody to the mother, finding it in the child's best interests to remain in Belgrade where she was settled and where the mother had stable, high-paying employment with the United Nations.

The court imputed income to both parties, finding the father intentionally underemployed, and ordered him to pay child support.

The mother was ordered to pay time-limited spousal support to the father.

Following a successful motion by the respondent Estate to bifurcate the trial regarding the validity of a marriage contract, the Estate and the co-respondent sought costs.

The Estate claimed over $74,000 in partial indemnity costs, which the applicant argued was disproportionate.

The court agreed that the Estate's costs were excessive and disproportionate for a one-day motion, despite the high stakes and complexity.

The court fixed the Estate's costs at $35,000 and the co-respondent's costs at $2,500.

The parties proceeded to trial to resolve remaining financial issues following their separation, including the equalization of net family property, occupation rent, and post-separation adjustments.

The court determined that the husband could not exclude the entire value of his interest in inherited farmland, as his interest vested prior to the marriage.

The court also awarded the wife occupation rent, finding that the husband had remained in exclusive possession of the matrimonial home and delayed its sale.

After calculating various post-separation adjustments and section 7 expenses, the court ordered the husband to pay an equalization payment of $80,712.06 to the wife.

The respondent mother brought a motion seeking $100,000 in security for costs against the applicant father, who resides in Spain and is seeking sole or joint custody of their child.

The father brought a cross-motion for unsupervised access.

The court dismissed the motion for security for costs, finding that while the father resides outside Ontario, his custody claim has merit and is not a nuisance.

The court also denied the father's request for unsupervised access due to outstanding criminal charges and flight risk concerns, instead ordering supervised access.

During an ongoing family law trial, the court issued procedural directions governing the completion of evidence and the management of remaining witnesses.

The respondent was permitted to call several witnesses within strict time limits and was directed regarding the orderly presentation of those witnesses.

The court addressed potential testimony from a treating professional, limiting the evidence to factual observations rather than expert opinions.

Directions were also given concerning a late-produced psychiatric report, potential cross‑examination of the author, possible updated views and preferences evidence for the children through the Office of the Children’s Lawyer, and updated financial disclosure from both parties.

Unmarried parents litigated custody, access, and child support regarding their child.

The applicant father sought joint custody and increased parenting time, while the respondent mother sought sole custody.

The court found the parties lacked the communication and cooperation required for joint custody and concluded that conflict between the parties created a risk of chronic decision‑making impasse.

Sole custody was therefore granted to the mother, with structured access for the father and a detailed parenting schedule.

The court also resolved child support issues under the Child Support Guidelines, imputing income to the father by disallowing unreasonable business deductions and ordering arrears of child support and proportionate contributions to childcare expenses.