Court File and Parties
COURT FILE NO.: FS-18-003765
DATE: 20180817
SUPERIOR COURT OF JUSTICE - ONTARIO
RE: Kathlyn Rose Mokriy, Applicant
AND:
Michael Gordon Ian Shaw, Respondent
BEFORE: F. L. Myers, J.
COUNSEL: W. Abbott, for the Applicant
B. Rossi, Respondent
HEARD: August 16, 2018
ENDORSEMENT
[1] The husband seeks costs of a motion that settled (all but costs that is). The motion was expensive due to the nature and degree of the allegations made by the wife.
[2] The case is at an early stage. I agree with Mr. Abbott that it would not be conducive to resolution were Ito try to point fingers or make conclusions on the merits at this early stage.
[3] But, the wife's position needs correction for this case to proceed to resolution short of disintegrating into a horrible war. She made broad, serious allegations to advance an extreme position. Whether she truly believed it or it was a negotiating strategy does not matter. Making aggressive demands prompted a very full and costly response. Up to the day before the motion, her offers to settle did not reflect much compromise - especially on the supervised access demand. She cross-moved for financial relief as well asking for triple what the husband had been paying voluntarily.
[4] After seeing a judge at a case conference, the motions settled with the parties agreeing to near 50/50 access with no supervision and formalizing the financial arrangements at the original level the husband had been voluntarily paying (plus possibly car expenses).
[5] Much money, time, and distress was incurred in the interim to no real avail or purpose. In my view, the wife needs to understand the financial cost and consequences of taking extreme and unyielding positions to the "courtroom steps".
[6] There is only one overall pot of money. If I require the wife to pay much now, she will just have to reach back into the pot that much sooner. While I find no unreasonableness in counsel's hours or rates, proportionality leads me to set a reasonable partial indemnity payment that sends a message but does not substantially skew the outcome of the case. In my view it is fair and reasonable for the wife to pay the husband his costs of the motions on a partial indemnity basis by paying $5,000 within 30 days and a further $15,000 from her share of the proceeds of the matrimonial home or as a credit against her side of any equalization payment - whichever is paid first. The total costs award is $20,000 all-inclusive plus PJI from the due date of each instalment.
F. L. Myers, J.
Date: August 17, 2018