Timothy Sullivan

The plaintiff brought a motion for an extension of time to set the action down for trial and to find the defendants in contempt.

The contempt motion was dismissed, and the parties could not agree on costs.

The defendants sought costs on a substantial indemnity basis, arguing that the contempt motion was ill-advised.

The court rejected the request for substantial indemnity costs, finding the plaintiff's conduct was not reprehensible.

The court fixed the defendants' costs at $9,000 on a partial indemnity basis, payable by the plaintiff.

The plaintiff brought a motion to extend the time to set the action down for trial and to find the defendants in civil contempt for allegedly failing to comply with a prior order for documentary production.

The court granted the extension of time on consent.

The court dismissed the contempt motion, finding no evidence that the defendants acted in defiance of the order, as they had produced documents and provided reasons for not producing others.

The court emphasized that civil contempt is a remedy of last resort and other adequate remedies were available to the plaintiff.

In a high-conflict family law proceeding, the respondent mother brought a motion seeking an extension of time to respond to the applicant father's Request to Admit to avoid deemed admissions, and to strike two subsequent Requests to Admit.

The court found that the respondent had served a blanket refusal within the required 20 days, meaning no deemed admissions occurred, and thus no extension was necessary.

The court also struck the applicant's second and third Requests to Admit as improper and an abuse of process, noting they sought admissions about privileged settlement conference discussions.

The applicant mother brought a motion seeking supervised access for the father and findings of contempt for alleged breaches of interim orders relating to insurance, benefits, and payment of an assessment retainer.

The respondent father cross‑moved to enforce the existing access order and sought make‑up parenting time.

The court held that the parties’ highly conflictual access exchanges and the father’s conduct regarding the infant child’s feeding constituted a sufficient change in circumstances to justify a limited variation of the interim order.

The court ordered that parenting exchanges occur at a supervised exchange centre and required the father to follow the mother’s feeding directions for the infant.

The court dismissed all contempt allegations, finding the orders either not clearly breached or not enforceable by contempt.