Court File and Parties

CITATION: Brown v. Brown, 2025 ONSC 6019

DIVISIONAL COURT FILE NO.: DC-1333-22 (Oshawa)

DATE: 2025-10-29

SUPERIOR COURT OF JUSTICE – ONTARIO DIVISIONAL COURT

RE: RUTH ELAINE BROWN, Applicant/Respondent AND: RICHARD N. BROWN, Respondent/Appellant

BEFORE: D.L. Corbett, McGee and Ryan Bell JJ.

COUNSEL: Richard N. Brown, self-represented Ruth Brown, self-represented

HEARD at Oshawa: January 6, 2024 and May 7, 2024

Endorsement

D.L. Corbett J.

[1] The appeal is from the trial judgment of Justice Laura Bird dated August 17, 2022, the order in respect to which was signed February 27, 2024. The judgment is set out in eighteen numbered paragraphs addressing property claims, equalization, and child and spousal support and s.7 expenses for the children (prospective and retrospective).

[2] The appellant, a self-represented disbarred lawyer, failed to deliver his trial documents in accordance with case management directions of Bruhn J. The appellant asked the case management judge to permit him to file his documents late, and the case management judge told the appellant to bring a motion on proper materials. The motion was not heard prior to trial, and the appellant again raised the issue with Bruhn J., who declined to deal with the issue since the trial was already underway: Bruhn J. directed the appellant to raise any issues about tendering documents at trial with the trial judge.

[3] The appellant then raised his request to rely on late-served documents at the trial, and the trial judge denied this request.

[4] Some of the documents the appellant sought to adduce into evidence were ultimately listed on the trial Exhibit List.

[5] The appellant argues that the trial judge’s rulings respecting his request to tender documents late were procedurally unfair and prevented him from presenting his case. In particular, he argues that:

(a) The “sanction” imposed by the trial judge was not consistent with the trial management directions, which did not specify a consequence for non-compliance with the schedule;

(b) The respondent was permitted to rely upon late-served documents, and so the trial judge’s ruling was not even-handed;

(c) The trial judge’s refusal to permit late-served documents into evidence was unduly harsh and unfair, given the circumstances that led to late service of the documents;

[6] These arguments do not avail the Appellant.

[7] Case management directions are not suggestions. They are directions to be followed. A range of possible sanctions may flow from non-compliance, depending on the circumstances. There is no obligation on a case management judge to set out any, let alone all, of the possible consequences that could flow from non-compliance.

[8] The Appellant is correct that self-represented litigants are entitled to assistance in navigating the court’s process. The assistance required depends on all the circumstances, including the sophistication and experience of the self-represented litigant. Here, where the Appellant is formerly a lawyer, there was no need to explain to him that he was required to follow case management directions, nor to explain to him the range of sanctions that could follow if he failed to comply with the court’s directions.

[9] The trial judge reviewed information provided by the respondent, including emails, and was satisfied that the Respondent had complied with case management directions. The Appellant was not present in court when this was done because he was seriously late for the trial. The trial judge would not have been required to review with the Appellant what took place during his absence – which was a result of his failure to discharge his responsibility as a litigant to attend court on time. However, the trial judge did review the information she had been provided by the Respondent with the Appellant when he eventually arrived in the courtroom. The Respondent agreed with the trial judge’s summary of the information that had been provided by the Respondent and agreed that the Respondent had complied with trial management directions. These acknowledgments are a complete answer to many of the Appellant’s arguments on appeal.

[10] Before us, the Appellant seeks to resile from the position he took before the trial judge. He describes the atmosphere in the courtroom as “tense” (no doubt in part as a result of his failure to attend court on time and the need to repeat things for him when he arrived). This is not a basis on which the Appellant may re-open an issue before us: he was required to raise this issue with the trial judge when he was given the opportunity to do so. Having agreed before the trial judge that the Respondent complied with case management directions, he cannot now complain that the trial judge was less than even-handed in relying on the Appellant’s concession or that the Respondent failed to meet her obligations.

[11] There was nothing unduly harsh or unfair in the trial judge’s ruling. The Appellant’s explanations for his failure to deliver his documents on time were inadequate. He explained that his printer ran out of toner – hardly an explanation for his failure to meet a long-established deadline.

[12] Nothing turns on the mis-labelling of some of the Appellant’s documents on the Exhibit List. The optimal approach would have been to identify those documents as “lettered” Exhibits, rather than “numbered” exhibits, to distinguish between documents tendered but not admitted into evidence, and the documents received in evidence. See: 1162740 Ont. Ltd. v. Pingue (2017), 2017 ONCA 52, 135 OR (3d) 792 (CA) – the comments of the Court of Appeal in Pingue respecting documents not marked as numbered exhibits apply equally to documents found inadmissible: they should be marked in some fashion so that a reviewing court can identify – from the record – the documents in issue on the evidentiary ruling. None of these observations assists the Appellant in this appeal: nothing in the trial judge’s reasons supports an argument that she mis-used documents she had concluded would not be admitted into evidence.

[13] The Appellant made a convoluted argument about the process he was to follow to seek permission to rely upon late-filed documents. It was open to him to seek permission from the case management judge prior to the start of trial. He did that. The case management judge denied the relief, without prejudice to the Appellant seeking that relief from the trial judge. He did that, and the trial judge denied his request. None of this process is a basis for the Appellant’s arguments that he was somehow confused by the process required, that the case management judge had, somehow, weighed in on what the trial judge should do (the case management judge did no such thing), or that the trial judge suggested that the Appellant should go back to the case management judge in the midst of trial (the trial judge suggested no such thing). The request came to the case management judge so late in the process that they left the issue for the trial judge, who decided the issue. There is nothing unfair in this process.

[14] Finally, this issue should be placed in the overall context of this case. The Appellant is asking us to set aside the trial decision and remit the entire matter back for a fresh trial. It is not obvious that any of the documents the Appellant sought to file would have led to a materially different result at trial. In his factum, the Appellant failed to explain the significance of the documents and how they could have changed the result at trial. On the Appellant’s materials on appeal, it is not possible to conclude that the Appellant suffered any prejudice as a result of the impugned rulings.

[15] The history of the case discloses that the Appellant significantly delayed proceedings. The parties were separated in 2016 and obtained a consent divorce in 2019. The financial issues between the parties – while not trivial – involve relatively modest amounts of money relative to the process costs of litigation: the total amount awarded against the Appellant was under $40,000, plus costs. Where the amounts in issue are so modest, relative to the costs of litigation, it was incumbent on the Appellant to identify the impact the impugned ruling had on the result, and to explain that identification with reference to the documents. Instead, the Appellant argued that he had been treated unfairly and so everything should be done over – an approach that is devoid of practicality.

Delay

[16] This appeal was scheduled for hearing on January 6, 2024. It could not proceed as scheduled because the Appellant had not obtained an issued and entered order reflecting the impugned trial judgment. This was eventually obtained in late February 2024, and the panel arranged to make itself available to hear the appeal by ZOOM on May 7, 2024.

[17] The appeal was decided shortly after it was heard, but the formal reasons were not released to the parties through administrative oversight. The first inquiry for the written reasons came to the court’s attention in late October 2025, whereupon the reasons were released to the parties.

Disposition

[18] The appeal is dismissed, with costs payable by the Appellant to the Respondent of $10,000, inclusive, payable within thirty days.[^1]

“D.L. Corbett J.”

“McGee J”

“Ryan Bell J.”

Released: October 29, 2025

[^1]: Although the Respondent was self-represented before us, she incurred substantial legal expenses preparing her materials for the appeal, and our award reflects partial indemnity costs.