Stephen J. Codas

This costs endorsement addresses two motions brought by the Respondent, both dismissed with costs awarded to the Applicant.

The first motion challenged the court's jurisdiction over property claims, and the second sought leave to appeal an arbitrator’s email communication.

The court reviews the guiding legal principles for costs in family law, including reasonableness, proportionality, and bad faith.

The Applicant was awarded $48,500 for the jurisdiction motion and $16,500 for the leave motion, both payable within 30 days.

The court considered a motion by the father for equal parenting time or, alternatively, a step-up schedule leading to equal time by September 2025.

The parties have two children, ages 13 and nearly 15, who have lived primarily with the mother since separation.

The court reviewed the best interests of the children under the Divorce Act, including the children’s views and preferences, the history of care, and the need for stability.

The court found that the children’s current schedule meets their needs and that a forced change would not be in their best interests.

The court ordered that the children continue to reside primarily with the mother, with parenting time for the father to be increased in accordance with the recommendations of a reintegration therapist, and adjourned the motion for review after several months.

The Appellant sought leave to appeal an arbitrator's email explanation regarding the costs of translating French documents to English, alleging an error of law and bias.

The Respondent opposed, arguing the motion was out of time, the right to appeal was misstated, the Appellant had consented to translations, there was no error of law, and no bias.

The court dismissed the motion for leave, finding no right of appeal for an explanation note, no error of law by the arbitrator on a question not put to him, and that the arbitration agreement limited appeals to questions of law, which this was not.

The court also found no evidence of bias.

The applicant father sought increased parenting time with his two children after their return to Ottawa from a four-year posting in Miami with the respondent mother.

The mother opposed a 50/50 shared parenting arrangement, citing the children's reluctance due to the father's home distance from school and unfamiliarity with a school routine there.

The court, applying the best interests of the child factors under the Divorce Act, found it was in the children's best interests to have increased parenting time with the father.

A temporary order was made for the father's parenting time to be from Wednesday after school to Sunday evening every alternate week, with a view towards a future shared parenting schedule.

The father was deemed the successful party and presumptively entitled to costs.

The respondent, Paul Wynn, brought a motion to bifurcate two key issues in a complex family law proceeding: the enforceability of a marriage contract and the determination of Paul's beneficial interest in significant family properties and businesses, including bare trust claims.

The added respondents supported the bifurcation of the property issue.

The applicant, Leslie Wynn, opposed the motion, seeking a single trial for all issues.

The court granted the motion, ordering the severance of issues into three separate trials or segments.

The court found that bifurcation was convenient and in the interests of justice due to the case's complexity, the potential for significant cost and time savings by avoiding extensive valuations, and the increased prospects for early settlement, concluding that there would be no undue prejudice to the applicant.

The Applicant Mother brought a motion seeking an order for the children to attend a specific private school for the 2024/2025 academic year, with tuition and expenses to be divided as a section 7 expense (Applicant 30%, Respondent 70%).

She also sought a psycho-educational assessment for the children.

The court granted the private school attendance, ordering equal sharing of tuition and expenses, but dismissed the request for a psycho-educational assessment without prejudice due to missing procedural details.

The decision emphasized the children's best interests, particularly stability and continuity in schooling, and found the private school expenses appropriate given the parties' combined financial resources, including proceeds from property sales.

The parties settled their family law litigation, and the respondent sought costs of $28,764.15 while the applicant argued for no costs due to divided success.

The court found that both parties had a measure of success in the settlement, meaning there was no clear capitulation by either side.

However, the court awarded $6,500 in partial recovery costs to the respondent because the applicant's unreasonable failure to provide required financial disclosure necessitated the proceedings.

The respondent sought full indemnity costs of $39,434.18 following a successful motion where the applicant's conduct was found to demonstrate bad faith.

The self-represented applicant opposed the quantum, asserting impecuniosity and over-lawyering by the respondent's counsel.

The court rejected the applicant's arguments, finding no evidence of impecuniosity and concluding that the time spent by the respondent's counsel was proportional to the complexity of the issues.

The applicant was ordered to pay the full amount claimed.

The Father brought a motion for summary judgment to declare a child support settlement binding and enforceable.

The Mother opposed, denying a binding settlement, and cross-moved for summary judgment to set aside any agreement, alleging it undervalued support and improperly waived support for one child.

The court dismissed both motions for summary judgment, finding that partial summary judgment was inappropriate as it would not be proportionate, expeditious, or less expensive, and could lead to inconsistent findings, especially concerning child support which is the right of the child and cannot be bartered away.

The court ordered further disclosure from both parties.

The Applicant, Jennifer Dixon, surreptitiously accessed and stored thousands of the Respondent, Peter Lindsay's, private and privileged emails after their separation.

The Respondent brought a motion seeking a declaration that the emails were improperly obtained and an order preventing their use.

The court found that Dixon deliberately accessed the emails without consent, rejecting her claims of consensual access and inadvertent storage.

The court declared the emails "stolen" and prohibited Dixon from using or referring to them in any legal proceeding.

Dixon was ordered to provide full particulars of her access, return and destroy all copies, and instruct any third parties to do the same.

The court also ordered Dixon to pay full indemnity costs to the Respondent due to her bad faith conduct.

The respondent mother brought an urgent motion for exclusive possession of the matrimonial home and specific parenting orders during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The court found the motion for exclusive possession urgent but dismissed it, determining that the mother did not meet the onus to demonstrate that continued co-habitation was impractical or threatened the children's well-being.

The court considered the father's inability to find alternative accommodation and the mother's financial resources.

The court also dismissed the request for exclusive care of the children for 14 days due to a lack of admissible evidence regarding the father's non-compliance with COVID-19 protocols.

The decision emphasized that the pandemic alone is not a reason to suspend parental access and encouraged parents to provide child-focused time-sharing proposals.

Appeal from a trial judge's decision granting sole custody of a child to the respondent mother and permitting relocation from Toronto to Nova Scotia.

The appellant father challenged the custody award, relocation decision, access schedule, and costs award.

The Court of Appeal upheld the trial judge's decisions on custody and relocation, finding they were supported by the record and within the trial judge's discretion.

The court modified the access schedule by removing a four-hour restriction on overnight visits with the child's grandparents, finding it inconsistent with the trial judge's own findings regarding the child's relationship with the paternal grandparents.

The costs award was upheld as within the trial judge's discretion.

The applicant sought sole custody of the child and permission to relocate with the child from Toronto to New Ross, Nova Scotia.

The respondent sought joint custody and opposed the relocation.

The court granted the applicant sole custody, finding her to be the primary caregiver and psychological parent, and permitted the relocation, noting the applicant's strong support system in New Ross and the child's established connection to the area.

The court also ordered child support based on the respondent's income and addressed section 7 expenses, while spousal support was waived by the applicant upon relocation being granted.

The respondent father brought a motion for a nesting arrangement for the parties' four-year-old child.

The applicant mother opposed and cross-moved for primary care and limited contact, also seeking an adjournment which was denied due to the toxic home environment.

The court found the mother's conduct unsupportive of the child's relationship with the father, citing her accusatory communications and breach of a prior order regarding video-taping.

The father's proposed nesting arrangement was granted, effective immediately, and the mother's cross-motion for primary care was adjourned.

The issue of the mother's contempt for breaching a court order was referred for further directions.

The respondent in a family law proceeding brought a motion seeking rescission or variation of an interim support order and requesting that child and spousal support arrears be fixed at zero and paid from the proceeds of the sale of the matrimonial home.

The applicant opposed and brought a cross‑motion seeking to prevent the motion from being heard due to the moving party’s failure to comply with prior costs orders and requesting payment of legal, accounting, and dental expenses from the trust funds.

The court exercised discretion to hear the motion despite non‑compliance with prior cost orders but declined to rescind the interim order entirely.

The court found insufficient evidence to eliminate support arrears and expressed serious concerns regarding the moving party’s financial disclosure and credibility.

Support obligations were varied based on declared income, arrears were not extinguished, and certain legal, accounting, and dental expenses were ordered paid from trust funds.

In a family law proceeding scheduled for imminent trial, the responding party sought leave to bring a late motion for production and forensic examination of a corporation’s original minute book and corporate tax returns to challenge the moving party’s asserted ownership interests.

The court found the disclosure requests related to issues long known to the parties and held the motion could and should have been brought months earlier.

Given the proximity of trial and the absence of any identified expert or feasible expert process under the Rules, the court declined to grant the requested relief.

Instead, the court ordered limited pre-trial inspection of the corporate minute book and original accounting records to streamline the upcoming trial.

Costs were awarded to the responding party to the motion.

Following a motion concerning custody and access, the successful party sought costs on a full indemnity basis.

The court considered the effect of an earlier offer to settle that met or exceeded the terms of the final order granting custody and access arrangements.

The court found the moving party had been successful and had achieved at least the terms of the offer.

Although no bad faith was established, the offer to settle justified enhanced costs.

Costs were awarded on a full indemnity basis for expenses incurred after the offer to settle.

Following a family law motion determining arrears of child support, section 7 expenses, and spousal support, the court addressed costs.

The respondent in the underlying motion obtained an order fixing arrears at $37,000, which exceeded the amount proposed in her offer to settle.

Applying the Family Law Rules and the offer to settle regime, the court awarded costs on a partial indemnity basis up to the date of the offer and full recovery thereafter.

After adjusting for unrelated issues and the straightforward nature of the arrears calculation, the court fixed costs at $10,000 plus $800 for the costs submissions, enforceable through a support deduction order.

Following motions in an ongoing family law proceeding, the parties made competing claims for costs relating to disputes about court‑ordered payments and a request to release funds held in counsel’s trust account.

The moving party argued he had achieved success and sought full recovery of substantial legal costs.

The responding party sought her own costs or, alternatively, that the issue be reserved to the trial judge.

The court held that it was not in a position to determine credibility or ultimate success between the parties on the available record.

Exercising discretion under the Courts of Justice Act and the Family Law Rules, the court reserved the issue of costs to the trial judge.

The responding spouse sought to strike the applicant spouse’s family law application for failure to comply with a prior order requiring monthly undifferentiated payments and costs following a trial adjournment granted at the applicant’s request.

The applicant acknowledged the breach and proposed partial compliance through RRSP deregistration and payment from trust funds held by counsel, arguing financial hardship and business failure.

The court declined to reconsider the prior order or permit satisfaction of the payments from trust funds, noting insufficient evidence to justify revisiting the earlier ruling and ongoing credibility concerns.

Instead of immediately striking the application, the court adjourned the motion and ordered extensive financial disclosure, including business documentation, banking records, passport records, and updated financial statements.

The applicant was required in the interim to pay funds realized from the RRSP deregistration to the respondent’s counsel pending further determination.