Court File and Parties
COURT FILE NO.: FS-21-100103-0000 DATE: January 10, 2022
SUPERIOR COURT OF JUSTICE - ONTARIO
RE: PRATEEK GUPTA v. SAKSHI GARG
BEFORE: JUSTICE VAN MELLE
COUNSEL: Sukwinder Singh Samra, for the Applicant Respondent self-represented
ENDORSEMENT
[1] The early case conference regime was set up in the early 2000’s when the dates for obtaining a case conference were two to three months out. The rules governing the Early Case Conference regime were set out in a Practice Direction, which direction was included in the Consolidated Practice Direction for Central West dated July 1, 2014. The section on Early Case Conferences is as follows:
- Litigants who are represented by counsel, and those who are self-represented, can participate in an early case conference.
- The case conferences will be held on Mondays. They will be listed as “Early Case Conference” (ECC) and are available only if a case conference has not already been held.
- Fifteen ECCs will be scheduled for 10 a.m.
- Both parties must certify they have fully discussed the issues to be litigated with the other side before their attendance at court for the ECC, or have attended court not later than 9 a.m. on the scheduled date to fully discuss the issues. If the parties have not discussed the issues fully in advance of 10 a.m., the conference will be rescheduled.
- Litigants are required to attend the ECC.
- Each ECC will be limited to a total of 15 minutes for all submissions, discussion and endorsements.
- The litigants must file updated financial statements. Case Conference Briefs must not exceed five double spaced pages setting out their positions and must not include lengthy schedules.
- The parties are limited to factual assertions contained in the written material, and will not be permitted to add additional facts in submissions.
[2] The intention was to ensure that matters such as child support (where the payor was a T-4 employee), and access (as it then was) issues could be directed to a motion, without the responding side being able to rely on the delay in obtaining a case conference date as a reason for not carrying out their obligations.
[3] While there was no need to establish urgency, the issues had to be straight forward and capable of being addressed in the allotted time.
[4] Complicated matters, such as conferences on multiple issues, the interpretation of a domestic contract and the imputation of income, were not appropriate for an early case conference. It was also never anticipated that the Early Case Conference would deal with disclosure issues.
[5] Recently, primarily due to the pandemic, the delay in obtaining a case conference date has lengthened significantly resulting in the necessity to resort again to Early Cases Conferences. At the present time, up to four early case conferences are scheduled on a Monday morning at 9:00 a.m for the conference judge to hear prior to commencing the regular conference list. The Consolidated Practice Direction insofar as it deals with Early Case Conferences, continues to apply.
[6] Unfortunately matters which are not properly the purview of an early case conference have been appearing on the Early Case Conference lists. For example, a case where a settlement conference had already been scheduled, a regular case conference already having taken place, appeared on the early case conference list.
[7] The ECC in this matter was arranged by the respondent even though an early case conference had already taken place and a motion for sale of the matrimonial home scheduled for February 1, 2022. While this in and of itself is contrary to the Early Case Conference regime, to make matters worse, the respondent did not upload any documents to CaseLines.
[8] The respondent appeared at today and indicated that as she is in India she wants $5,000 from the applicant to enable her to travel to Canada for the motion. She also indicated that she is agreeable to the sale of the matrimonial home but does not like any of the real estate agents proposed by the applicant.
[9] I urged the respondent to agree to a real estate agent and not to hold up the sale of the matrimonial home. I explained potential cost consequences to the parties.
[10] The applicant was put to the expense of having to prepare a brief for today and attending this morning. He seeks nominal costs of $500 which I find to be reasonable.
[11] An order will issue that the respondent pay to the applicant his costs for today in the amount of $500 payable from the respondent’s share of the proceeds from the sale of the matrimonial home.
JUSTICE VAN MELLE DATE: January 10, 2022