Aperocho v. Tolentino

CITATION : 2012 ONSC 3044

COURT FILE NO.: 138/11
DATE: May 23, 2012

SUPERIOR COURT OF JUSTICE - ONTARIO

RE: Ronaldo Aperocho, Applicant

AND: Sonia Tolentino, Respondent

BEFORE: Mr Justice Ramsay

COUNSEL: both parties self-represented

HEARD: 2012-05-23 at St Catharines

ENDORSEMENT

[ 1 ] The parties divorced in year 2000. The husband paid child support of $254 a month, based on an annual income of $28,500, until 2008, when the one child of the marriage, a son, went to live with him. The husband is now asking for child support.

[ 2 ] The son turned 18 in June of 2009. He attended three consecutive years of post-secondary education, which is scheduled to end this month. I have limited information about the cost, but I do have some documentation which suggests that school fees alone for the first two years at Niagara College would have amounted to about $4,500. There would in addition have been living expenses associated with living at home with his father, and transportation. The current year’s education is a course to qualify the son as a personal service worker.

[ 3 ] The wife claims credit for retroactive amounts that should have been ordered between 2001 and 2008 in view of increases in the husband’s income. By 2008 the husband was earning $39,000. She also claims credit for orthodontics, for which she paid $2,900.

[ 4 ] The father is entitled to receive child support. The father had his lawyer write a letter to the mother in January 2009, claiming child support. I think that the mother should contribute to all three years of post-secondary education. No ongoing support past today is claimed or payable.

[ 5 ] The wife never asked for an increase in child support until the present motion was filed. On the other hand, the husband should have notified her of his changes in income. I do not know what he earned from 2001 to 2006, but he earned $38,500 in 2007 and $39,600 in 2008. For the 12 months of 2007 and the six months of 2008 in which the son was living with his mother, the father should have been paying $332 a month, then $342 a month. For those 18 months, he underpaid by $1364. He should also have paid, by my rough estimate, 55% of the orthodontic bill, or $1595. The wife is entitled to a credit of $2959 by this arithmetic. Acknowledging the roughness of the estimate, I round it to $3,000.

[ 6 ] I estimate the cost of a year’s education for this young man to be $10,000. The husband earns $42,000 a year. On the evidence before me, I think it fair to put the wife’s annual income at an average of $34,000 for the period 2009 to date. She has no savings. The son appears to have been able to contribute $5,000 a year. The parents should be responsible for the difference about 55/45. I put the mother’s contribution at a little more than $2,300 a year, for a three-year total of $7,000. After deducting the credit mentioned above, I order the mother to pay child support in the sum of $4,000 in monthly instalments of $400 commencing June 1, 2012.

[ 7 ] After making this decision, I opened the envelope containing the husband’s offer to settle and considered the question of costs. The husband paid about $4,000 in legal fees. The wife paid about $2,000. The husband offered to settle. He got less than he offered. The wife offered nothing. I think that the husband is entitled to costs on a partial indemnity basis. I fix those costs at $500.

[ 8 ] A support deduction order will issue.

[ 9 ] The registrar may issue an order in the following terms, in addition to the usual support deduction order:

a. The Respondent Sonia Tolentino is ordered to pay child support to the Applicant Ronald Aperocho for Roniel Aperocho, born July 23, 1991, in the amount of $4,000, calculated in accordance with s.7 (e) of the Child Support Guidelines. The amount shall be paid in monthly instalments of $400 commencing June 1, 2012;

b. The Respondent shall pay to the Applicant costs of $500, which are deemed to be costs incurred to obtain child support and shall be enforceable as such. The costs are payable in monthly instalments of $50, commencing June 1, 2012.

J.A. Ramsay J.

Date: 2012-05-23