The appellant sought to reopen a family law appeal to vary the costs order following reasons in a child support case.
The Court of Appeal declined to reopen the appeal and clarified that its earlier statement that the paying spouse should ordinarily bear the child support litigation costs was confined to exceptional cases involving income vastly exceeding $150,000 and a huge disparity in ability to pay.
The court further held that any such approach remained subject to Rule 49 of the Rules of Civil Procedure and, where applicable, Rule 18 of the Family Law Rules, as well as the requirement that the payee spouse have acted reasonably.
The relationship between that approach and rule 24(1) of the Family Law Rules was left for another day because those rules did not apply to this case.
