Louis Mostyn

The moving party, Stefano Carella, brought a motion for leave to appeal the order of Dietrich J. dated February 20, 2020.

The Divisional Court dismissed the motion for leave to appeal.

No order was made as to costs due to an outstanding issue regarding whether the moving party was capable of instructing counsel.

The court reconsidered a previous costs endorsement after the applicant's counsel identified a factual error regarding the mother's living arrangements.

The original endorsement, issued on April 14, 2016, had ordered no costs following the settlement of access and child support issues.

The judge acknowledged and apologized for the factual mistake and invited both parties to submit additional written submissions on costs, specifically requesting copies of settlement offers from the applicant to assess the respondent's alleged failure to follow procedures and respond to offers.

The parties appeared for a trial regarding access and child support, which were resolved on consent.

The applicant mother sought costs of $14,653.61, and the respondent father sought disbursements of $1,150.

The court declined to award costs to either party, noting that the mother had been unreasonable regarding access and her position on child support was unrealistic given the father's prior contributions to her housing expenses.

No order as to costs was made.

The respondent father sought an order to change the child's registered surname from the mother's maiden name to a hyphenated surname including his name.

The child was born during the parties' brief marriage and registered by the mother alone under the Vital Statistics Act.

The father argued that the mother's refusal to acknowledge him for registration purposes was unreasonable and that the court should exercise parens patriae jurisdiction to order the change.

The court dismissed the motion, finding that the Ontario Court of Justice lacks parens patriae jurisdiction and that even if it possessed such jurisdiction, the evidence supported the mother's decision not to acknowledge the father for registration purposes.

The parties separated in 2003 and the mother has had primary care of their son since.

The father's access was restricted to supervised visits after incidents of inappropriate behavior, including threatening the mother with a baseball bat and breaching court orders.

The father sought unsupervised access and a finding of contempt against the mother, while the mother sought sole custody and continued supervised access.

The court granted sole custody to the mother and ordered that the father's access remain supervised due to his poor judgment and disregard for court orders.

The father was also ordered to pay table child support, and his contempt motion was dismissed.