Ken Nathens

The parties, parents to an eight-year-old boy, separated in 2022 following an incident of family violence.

The father sought increased parenting time and a corresponding reduction in child support, while the mother sought retroactive child support and proportionate sharing of various extracurricular activities as section 7 expenses.

The court found that increasing the father's parenting time was not in the child's best interests given the child's distress from the parents' conflict and need for stability.

The court ordered the father to pay child support arrears and determined which extracurricular activities qualified as extraordinary expenses to be shared proportionately.

A proposed intervener brought a motion for leave to intervene as a friend of the court in a family law appeal concerning child custody and the best interests of the children.

The appellant consented, but the respondent opposed the motion.

The court acknowledged the proposed intervener's expertise but dismissed the motion, finding that the late timing of the application would cause significant prejudice to the respondent, who would not have adequate time to respond to the intervener's factum before the scheduled appeal hearing.

The applicant and respondent disputed the date of separation, the respondent's date of marriage assets, and the respondent's income for child support purposes.

The court determined the date of separation to be July 3, 2014, when joint marriage counselling ended and there was no reasonable prospect of resuming cohabitation.

The court rejected the respondent's claim of a $200,000 date of marriage asset due to lack of evidence.

Finally, the court imputed an annual income of $75,000 to the respondent for child support, finding him intentionally under-employed.

The respondent was ordered to pay equalization and post-separation adjustments.

The applicant sought sole custody, child support, a restraining order, and a declaration of a beneficial interest in the family residence owned by her father-in-law (the third party respondent).

The respondent father did not participate in the trial.

The court granted the applicant sole custody, supervised access for the respondent, a restraining order, and retroactive and prospective child support based on an imputed income.

However, the court dismissed the applicant's trust and proprietary estoppel claims regarding the family residence, finding no credible evidence of financial contribution or a clear promise to transfer title.

The applicant was ordered to vacate the property and pay the third party respondent $13,640 in damages for trespass for unpaid utilities.

Following the dismissal of the applicant's claims against her late husband's estate, the respondent sought substantial indemnity costs, alleging reprehensible conduct by the applicant.

The court found that the applicant's conduct, including her vigorous pursuit of the claim and her testimony regarding the marriage contract, did not amount to reprehensible conduct justifying elevated costs.

The court awarded the respondent partial indemnity costs, fixing the amount at $75,000 inclusive of disbursements, plus HST.

The father brought an urgent motion to reinstate unsupervised access to his three-year-old daughter after the mother unilaterally withheld access based on allegations of sexual abuse.

The mother brought a cross-motion seeking supervised access.

The court reviewed the history of investigations by police and child protection authorities, all of which concluded the allegations were unfounded.

Applying the risk of harm analysis, the court found insufficient credible evidence of abuse and determined there was a low risk of harm and significant benefit to the child having a relationship with the father.

The father's motion for unsupervised access was granted and the mother's cross-motion was dismissed.

Following the breakdown of a 41‑year marriage, the parties sought competing equalization payments under the Family Law Act.

The court considered disputes regarding undisclosed bank accounts allegedly belonging to the respondent’s sister, artwork claimed as excluded property by the applicant, and other asset valuations.

Emails between the respondent and his sister were admitted despite allegations they were improperly obtained, as they were highly relevant and the respondent had misled the court about their existence.

The court rejected the respondent’s explanation that approximately $74,000 in bank accounts belonged to his sister and included those funds in his net family property.

Accepting the applicant’s net family property calculation, the court ordered the respondent to pay an equalization payment of $73,678.50, released trust funds to the applicant, secured payment against the matrimonial home, and granted a divorce.