Sharon Jeet Khaira Binning

The applicant father brought a motion seeking joint custody and expanded access to the parties’ young child, while the respondent mother sought sole custody, supervised or suspended access, retroactive child support, interim spousal support, and transfer of the proceeding to another municipality.

The court found the parties’ affidavit evidence on allegations of abuse and parental involvement to be sharply conflicting and incapable of resolution on a motion record.

Maintaining the status quo, the court granted the mother interim sole custody pending the report of the Office of the Children's Lawyer.

The father was granted a gradual reintroduction to the child beginning with short-term supervised access at a supervised access centre before transitioning to unsupervised and then overnight parenting time.

The court declined to order retroactive child support, refused interim spousal support due to lack of demonstrated need, and dismissed the request to transfer the proceeding.

Following a motion addressing temporary custody and access, child support, and spousal support, the court determined the issue of costs.

The responding party to the underlying motion sought costs on either a full recovery or partial indemnity basis, asserting success on the major issues including custody and the imputation of income for support purposes.

Applying Rule 24(1) of the Family Law Rules, the court held that the responding party was the successful party, though not to the full extent claimed.

The court declined to award full recovery costs because the requirements under Rule 18(14) were not satisfied.

Exercising discretion, the court reduced the claimed hours and awarded a partial indemnity costs amount reflecting what a losing party would reasonably expect to pay.