Family and Matrimonial Law - OCA

The self-represented moving party sought review of a motion judge's decision dismissing his motion to extend time to appeal a Superior Court order that had itself declined to extend time for him to appeal a default order in a support enforcement proceeding.

The panel applied the deferential standard requiring an error in law or misapprehension of material evidence before intervening.

Finding no such error, the panel upheld the motion judge's refusal of the extension, which was based on the proposed appeal being manifestly without merit and an abuse of process.

The panel noted that concerns regarding incarceration, support payment history, and arrears calculation had been previously decided and upheld on appeal, and could not be addressed through the proposed appeal in the context of a support enforcement proceeding.

Motion by the appellant for an extension of time to perfect an appeal from an order refusing to set aside the striking of the appellant's pleadings in family law proceedings.

The motion was dismissed as contrary to the interests of justice.

The moving party had a long-standing pattern of non-compliance with court orders, including failure to provide financial disclosure and failure to pay substantial costs orders.

The appeal lacked merit as the motion judge's findings were entitled to deference and the appellant's admitted failure to pay costs orders alone was fatal to the appeal.

Substantial indemnity costs awarded to the responding parties.

The appellant appealed a motion judge's order, arguing the judge misapprehended evidence regarding the interpretation of a quitclaim deed and its tax consequences.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that the interpretation of the deed was a matter of law and intention, not evidence, and that the motion judge correctly considered the tax consequences without misapprehending the evidence.

The appellant appealed an order setting aside a separation agreement and fixing the date of separation as July 31, 2018.

The application judge set aside the agreement under s. 56(4) of the Family Law Act because the appellant failed to disclose a pending $4,000,000 investment in his company.

The Court of Appeal found no error in the application judge's conclusion that the non-disclosure warranted setting aside the agreement on fairness grounds.

The Court also upheld the application judge's factual determination of the separation date, finding it was supported by the evidence of the parties' ongoing interactions.

The appeal was dismissed.

The moving party brought a motion to quash an appeal filed in the Court of Appeal, arguing the court lacked jurisdiction.

The responding party acknowledged the error and requested a transfer to the Divisional Court under section 110(1) of the Courts of Justice Act.

The Court of Appeal granted the motion to quash and declined to order a transfer, finding the proposed appeal lacked obvious merit and that further delay would prejudice the moving party given significant unpaid support and costs arrears.

The appellant appealed a trial judge's order regarding spousal support, life insurance, occupation rent, and the valuation of net family property.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no error of law, principle, or palpable and overriding error of fact in the trial judge's assessment of the evidence.

The court also declined to address the issue of pre- and post-judgment interest as it was not raised at trial.

The appellant father appealed a final parenting order regarding his adult child with Down Syndrome.

The trial judge had ordered that the father have no unsupervised parenting time, and that supervised parenting time occur only at the respondent mother's discretion.

The Court of Appeal admitted fresh evidence confirming the child's views could not be easily ascertained, satisfying the presumption of capacity framework.

However, the Court found the trial judge erred by failing to include a review mechanism in the order, given that the adult child would never 'age out' of it.

The appeal was allowed in part and remitted to the trial judge to structure a built-in review mechanism to allow the father to seek unsupervised parenting time in the future.

The self-represented moving party sought a panel review of an appeal management direction in a high-conflict family matter.

The direction had imposed a deadline for ordering transcripts and affirmed the requirement that documents be filed in English.

The Court of Appeal stayed the motion under Rule 2.1 of the Rules of Civil Procedure, finding it frivolous and vexatious.

The court noted that panel reviews of appeal management directions are not explicitly permitted and that the motion was premature, as the moving party could still seek relief from transcript requirements by bringing a motion for directions to the appeal management judge.

The moving party, a self-represented lawyer, sought to set aside a registrar's order administratively dismissing his family law appeal for delay and requested an extension of time to perfect it.

The moving party had previously been granted an extension but failed to file the required documents, claiming inadvertence.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the motion, finding the explanation for delay unsatisfactory given the moving party's history of non-compliance with court orders and the Rules, and concluding that a further extension would prejudice the responding parties.

The appellant father appealed a child support order, arguing the trial judge erred in imputing income based on a housing benefit and in making the order retroactive to the child's birth.

The Court of Appeal found no error in the trial judge's decision regarding imputed income, which was based on an adverse inference due to the father's non-compliance with disclosure orders and the value of free luxury accommodation received from his brother for engineering services.

The court also upheld the retroactive child support order, noting the father's blameworthy conduct in failing to provide proper financial disclosure.

The appeal was dismissed.

The mother appealed an order returning her three-year-old child to Pakistan and recognizing a foreign divorce.

The motion judge had summarily determined, based solely on conflicting affidavit evidence, that the child was habitually resident in Pakistan and faced no serious risk of harm if returned.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, finding that the mother was denied procedural fairness because the conflicting evidence regarding parental intention and domestic violence required a more robust evidentiary hearing.

The matter was remitted to the Superior Court for a proper evidentiary hearing.

The appellant challenged a family law order requiring him to pay child support and spousal support, alleging unfair trial management, misapprehension of evidence, errors in law regarding support, unjust enrichment, joint family venture, child support, and credibility assessments.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no basis for the appellant's arguments, affirming the trial judge's comprehensive reasons, balanced trial management, and well-supported credibility assessments, particularly regarding the appellant's lack of credibility concerning his relationship and finances.

The court also upheld the discretionary lump sum spousal support award.

This appeal concerned whether the validity of a marriage contract could be re-litigated between parties embroiled in multiple, long-standing family, corporate, and bankruptcy law actions.

The appellant sought to raise the issue of the marriage contract's validity, arguing it was not definitively determined in prior contempt proceedings.

The Court of Appeal upheld the lower court's finding that the issue was integral to previous decisions and that allowing its re-litigation would constitute an abuse of process, especially given the appellant's failure to appeal earlier orders.

The appeal was dismissed.

This is an appeal from a summary judgment dismissing a former wife's application for spousal support and equalization of net family properties under the Family Law Act.

The motion judge had dismissed the application, finding that a Lebanese annulment of the marriage deprived the Ontario court of jurisdiction.

The Court of Appeal found that the motion judge erred in law, clarifying that a "former spouse" under s. 7 of the Family Law Act is not restricted to those divorced in Canada, and foreign corollary relief proceedings do not remove the Ontario Superior Court's jurisdiction over equalization claims.

The appellant withdrew her claim for spousal support.

The appeal was allowed, and the matter was remitted to the Superior Court for consideration of the equalization claim.

The respondent was largely successful in defending her former husband's appeal and pursuing her cross-appeal.

She sought full recovery costs of $40,422.60.

The Court of Appeal awarded her costs of $38,000, ordering that 25% of the award be enforced by the Family Responsibility Office as it was proportionate to the support-related issues at stake.

In supplementary reasons following an appeal regarding property ownership, the Court of Appeal addressed outstanding financial issues between former spouses.

The court ordered the respondent to reimburse the appellant for mortgage and property tax payments she made on his half-interest in a jointly owned property, finding he would otherwise be unjustly enriched.

The court also awarded the appellant additional occupation rent for the post-trial period.

Given divided success on the main appeal issues, the court ordered the parties to bear their own costs for both the trial and the appeal.

L'intimé a déposé une motion en vertu de la règle 61.06 des Règles de procédure civile pour obtenir une ordonnance de cautionnement pour dépens d'un montant de 10 000 $.

La motion découlait d'une procédure matrimoniale où les parties avaient résolu la plupart des questions en litige, la question principale au procès étant le partage des biens familiaux.

Le juge de première instance avait rendu un jugement obligeant l'appelante à payer l'intimé 128 560 $ pour sa part du foyer conjugal et obligeant l'intimé à faire un paiement d'égalisation de 144 934,47 $ par roulement de pension.

L'appelante a interjeté appel de cette décision.

The father of a six-year-old child sought the child's return to Texas pursuant to the Hague Convention on the International Return of Children and also sought to dismiss the mother's Ontario divorce application for lack of jurisdiction.

The application judge allowed both applications.

The mother appealed, challenging the findings on habitual residence, acquiescence, and intolerable situation.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, upholding the application judge's determination that the child's habitual residence was in Texas, that the mother had not established acquiescence or an intolerable situation, and that Ontario lacked jurisdiction over the divorce application.

The appellant appealed the dismissal of her application to set aside minutes of settlement in matrimonial proceedings.

The parties had been in a common-law relationship from 1985 to 1999 and had two adult children.

They lived in Canada, England, and Ireland before separating.

The appellant sought to set aside a 2006 settlement agreement on grounds of non-disclosure of assets, including a Spanish property and stock options.

The trial judge found that while the respondent had failed to disclose certain assets, the agreement was fair and the non-disclosure was not material to the appellant's decision to settle.

The Court of Appeal upheld the trial judge's decision, finding no palpable and overriding error of fact.

The appellant, a father in child protection proceedings, appealed a Superior Court decision that upheld an Ontario Court of Justice order varying his access to children from unsupervised to supervised pending trial.

The Court of Appeal found that the Superior Court order was interlocutory in nature, dealing with interim access pending trial, and therefore the Court of Appeal lacked jurisdiction to hear the appeal.

The court declined to transfer the matter to the Divisional Court, finding that section 19(4) of the Courts of Justice Act precluded such an appeal.

The appeal was quashed for lack of jurisdiction.