BARRIE
ONTARIO
SUPERIOR COURT OF JUSTICE
BETWEEN:
ROLF MEESER
Applicant Husband
– and –
PEGGY MEESER
Respondent Wife
T. Pratt, for the Applicant Husband
K. Kieller and C. Ashbourne, for the Respondent Wife
JOSEF MEESER and KATHARINA MEESER
Respondents
T. Pratt, for the Respondents
HEARD: by written submissions
EBERHARD J.
1On December 12, 2012 I released reasons for judgment after trial heard November 26-30, 2012, December 3, 2012, and written submissions thereafter.
2I ordered:
The parties may address costs in writing submitted to the judicial secretary in Barrie as follows:
No more than two pages argument together with bill of costs and any offers;
Respondent Wife by January 4, 2013, Applicant Husband and added Respondents by January 15, 2013 and reply by January 20, 2013.
3Both parties filed cost material more enthusiastic than that.
4Before any trial begins it is predictable that the cost will be no less than $10,000 per side per day. That is simply what judicial experience of many cost submissions and pre-trial discussions has taught me. Parties must always weigh this risk before insisting on positions that cannot be resolved except by trial. Although I do not know the details of the conferences and in particular the Trial Management Conference in this case, I have confidence that the Family Court Rules and practice in this jurisdiction consistently emphasize that trial is expensive.
5Proportionality has to be measured against that back drop. If trial is out of proportion to the issues that is a litigation risk they took. It is too late for the unsuccessful party to say that too much was spent for the complexity of the issues if that is what it took to succeed at trial.
6In the present case the Applicant Husband was the unsuccessful party. That is not so much that his offer was farther away from the result than the Respondent Wife’s position. It is that the theory put forward by the Applicant Husband was unreasonable. It required considerable effort to displace that would not have been necessary if the Applicant Husband had acknowledged entitlements as found and the argument were limited to quantum.
7The Respondent Wife did not achieve the quantums claimed for support or property but she had to expend considerable effort to show entitlement which was, as compared spouses with more conventional financial arrangements, quite self evident.
8Most important was the expert evidence around income. This was a necessary expense in the circumstances of the case. as evidence emerged in the case explaining some of the financial evidence he had considered he did responsible recalculations taking into account information not available to him before trial.
9I fix costs at 50,000 all in for fees and $15,700 for disbursements plus GST on disbursements. Of this total, $55,000 may be enforceable in like manner as costs because that proportion is attributable to the pursuit of support.
EBERHARD J.
Released: February 6, 2013