Steven Doron Benmor

Following a successful family law motion, the court addressed costs.

The successful party sought full recovery costs while the unsuccessful party argued for no costs or a nominal award.

Applying Rule 24(11)(b) of the Family Law Rules, the court considered the reasonableness of the parties’ conduct.

The court found that communications from the responding party’s counsel contained inappropriate accusations and unnecessarily escalated the dispute.

As a result, the court awarded full recovery costs with a punitive element to mark its disapproval of the behaviour.

The respondent father brought a motion to stay an Ontario application for child support on the basis that he resided in Florida and that Ontario should decline jurisdiction under forum non conveniens or require the claim to proceed under the Interjurisdictional Support Orders Act.

The court applied the real and substantial connection test and held that the child’s ordinary residence in Ontario constituted a sufficient presumptive connecting factor to ground jurisdiction.

Relying on Court of Appeal authority, the court found that the Interjurisdictional Support Orders Act does not displace jurisdiction under the Family Law Act but provides an alternative procedure.

The respondent failed to demonstrate that Florida was a clearly more appropriate forum.

The motion to stay the Ontario proceeding was dismissed.

A motion to change custody and parenting arrangements concerning a six-year-old child, Zara Karima Demirdache.

The father sought to transfer the child from a French-language public school (École élémentaire Pierre-Elliott-Trudeau) to either a French Immersion program or an English-language public school, citing his inability to communicate in French and concerns about exclusion from the child's education.

The mother opposed the transfer, seeking to maintain the child's enrollment at the French school.

The court dismissed the father's motion, finding that the child was thriving at the French school, had developed strong friendships, was making excellent academic progress, and that the father had successfully maintained meaningful involvement in the child's education despite the language barrier.

The court ordered the child to remain at the French school for the 2013-2014 academic year and imposed conditions requiring the mother to provide translations of report cards and advance notice of school events.

The applicant brought a motion to strike the respondent's pleadings due to his alleged failure to comply with multiple court orders regarding child and spousal support, financial disclosure, and business valuation.

The court declined to strike the pleadings, noting that such a remedy should only be used in exceptional circumstances, particularly in family law cases where ongoing obligations are determined.

Instead, the court ordered alternative remedies, including allowing the applicant to encumber the matrimonial home for litigation funding, requiring the respondent to provide a collateral mortgage to secure support arrears, and granting the applicant access to the respondent's business records.

The appellant appealed an order refusing to set aside an uncontested custody and child support order.

The appellant had failed to respond to the initial application, leading to the uncontested hearing.

The Court of Appeal found no error in the motion judge's refusal to set aside the order, noting the appellant failed to explain his failure to respond to the proceedings and that the best interests of the children were considered.

The appeal was dismissed with costs.

A long-running family law dispute concerned custody, mobility, and child support relating to a child whose mother sought to relocate from Ontario to Kitimat, British Columbia.

The court applied the mobility framework from Gordon v. Goertz and considered the child’s views, parental relationships, stability, educational needs, and the feasibility of maximizing contact with the non-moving parent.

Although the child expressed a preference to relocate with the mother, the court found the father’s household offered greater stability and that the move posed significant risks due to distance, logistics, and the child’s past difficulty with transitions.

The court concluded the mother had not established that relocation was in the child’s best interests and ordered that the child remain primarily with the father in Ontario.

The court also recalculated retroactive child support, finding the father had underpaid based on undisclosed income and fixing arrears accordingly.

The father brought a motion to strike ten paragraphs from the mother's Amended Response to Motion to Change, arguing that paragraphs describing his difficulties working with professionals involved with the family were irrelevant, inflammatory, and would prejudice a fair trial.

The mother agreed to strike three paragraphs but opposed striking the remainder.

The court found that evidence regarding the father's ability to communicate and cooperate with professionals was highly relevant to the issues of joint custody and shared parenting, as these abilities directly relate to the father's capacity to co-parent effectively.

The court struck only the three paragraphs to which the mother consented and dismissed the balance of the father's motion.

The respondent father brought a motion to set aside an order made after an undefended trial that granted the mother sole custody, adjusted parenting time, imputed income to the father, and ordered child support.

The moving party sought leave to file an answer and financial statement, arguing the order resulted in injustice and that he had not participated in the proceeding.

The court held that the Family Law Rules did not authorize setting aside the order and that the Rules of Civil Procedure provisions respecting default judgments could not be applied by analogy.

Even if applicable, the moving party failed to provide any explanation for his default and did not satisfy the criteria required to set aside a default judgment.

The court further found no manifest injustice warranting use of inherent jurisdiction.

The applicant mother brought a motion for a temporary order to move the parties' 12-year-old child from a private school to a public school gifted program for Grade 7.

The respondent father opposed the motion, arguing the child should remain at the private school and that the issue required a trial.

The court found it had jurisdiction to make a temporary order regarding school choice if it was in the child's best interests.

However, the court dismissed the motion, finding the mother had not met the onus of demonstrating that a change in schools was in the child's best interests at this time, particularly given the child's preference to remain at his current school and the lack of comprehensive expert evidence evaluating both options.

The court ordered an independent assessment under section 30 of the Children's Law Reform Act to determine the issue for trial.

Pre-trial motion decision in a family law matter concerning a motion to change a prior order that granted the applicant custody of two children and denied the respondent access.

The respondent sought to vary the order based on completion of substance abuse treatment.

The court addressed multiple pre-trial motions including: permission for the applicant and her spouse to participate in cross-examination via Skype from Denmark; disclosure of police records concerning the respondent; extensive mutual disclosure requests; and whether to set aside or stay prior court orders.

The court permitted Skype cross-examination based on financial hardship and the balance of convenience, ordered disclosure of police records with court screening, granted mutual disclosure requests, and stayed the order requiring production of children for supervised access while declining to set aside the original custody order.

The appellant, a judgment creditor of the respondent husband, appealed an order dismissing her motion to enforce her judgment against the proceeds of the sale of the matrimonial home.

The appellant had loaned money to the husband, part of which was used to pay down the mortgage.

The motion judge held that under s. 4 of the Creditors' Relief Act, outstanding child support arrears took priority over the appellant's claim against the husband's share of the proceeds.

The motion judge also dismissed the appellant's unjust enrichment claim against the respondent wife's share, finding a juridical reason for the enrichment.

The Court of Appeal upheld the decision and dismissed the appeal, declining to consider a new argument for an equitable lien.

The respondent obtained summary judgment against the appellants for an alleged loan under the simplified rules.

The appellants appealed, arguing that the statement of claim only pleaded a single loan of $22,750 (U.S.), which they claimed to have repaid, rather than a revolving line of credit as found by the trial judge.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal and set aside the summary judgment, finding that the trial judge erred by granting judgment based on a revolving line of credit that was not properly pleaded in the statement of claim.

The applicant was injured in a motor vehicle accident and received statutory accident benefits from the insurer.

The parties signed a settlement agreement, which the applicant later disputed.

The insurer argued the agreement was a full and final release of all claims.

The arbitrator found that while the parties had reached an agreement, the disclosure statement provided by the insurer failed to comply with section 9.1(2) of the Settlement Regulation because it omitted the commuted value of future benefits.

As a result, the applicant was entitled to rescind the settlement under section 9.1(4) and proceed to arbitration.