Case law
Recent case: Relocation in the context of family violence
This case summary of A.J.K. v J.P.B. 2022 MBQB 43 was prepared by Pamela Cross. While this is a Manitoba case and, therefore, not binding on Ontario courts, the decision is interesting because of the extensive exploration of family violence in the context of the mother’s request to move with the children without providing notice…
Read moreCase update: Status quo and maximum contact
In the case of Theriault v Ford 2022 ONSC 3619, the court considered what “status quo” and “maximum contact” mean within the context of the amendments to the Divorce Act and Children’s Law Reform Act. This case involves parents of two children who were married to each other for 8 years before separating. The father was charged with…
Read moreRecent case: Supreme Court mobility decision
In Barendregt v Grebliunas, the Supreme Court of Canada considered which parent should have primary responsibility for their two young children and whether the mother could relocate them to a town some distance from where they had been living with their father. The family was living in Kelowna, British Columbia, when, following an assault by the…
Read moreRecent family law case: Tort of family violence
Ahluwalia v. Ahluwalia 2022 ONSC 1303 This recent case has taken Ontario’s legal community by storm. Justice Mandhane of Ontario’s Superior Court has awarded the mother in this case $150,000.00 in compensatory, aggregated and punitive damages for the tort of family violence. This is a ground-breaking decision for survivors of family violence and one that…
Read moreRecent case: Disclosure obligations for executive employees
Ali v. Sayilgan 2022 ONSC 2051 In keeping with our theme of exploring financial disclosure obligations in family court proceedings, the following case comment provides a good overview of the proportionality of disclosure where one party works as an executive employee. In this case, the respondent mother brought a motion for production from the applicant…
Read moreRecent case: Cost award based on conduct
D.C.A. v. A.E.C., 2022 ONSC 1002: This recent case demonstrates an effective use of Rule 1(8) of the Family Law Rules, where one party is ordered to pay costs for sending harassing emails to the other even though there was an order limiting communications between them. D.C.A., the applicant father and A.E.C., the respondent mother are…
Read moreRecent case: Parenting time and inflammatory comments
Gill v. Gill 202 ONSC 6803: This case looks at parenting time amidst high conflict between parents and the courts disinterest in seeing inflammatory comments about one party to the litigation. After the parents’ child, E, died in a tragic drowning accident, the father unilaterally assumed sole care of the parties’ remaining child, J. The mother…
Read moreRecent case: Children are not property
Marshall v. Snow et al., 2022 ONSC 1687 This is a carefully thought-out decision by the Honourable Justice Kurz concerning what happens to a child when her primary caregiver passes away and the remaining family members “battle” over who “keeps” the child. While this case does not exclusively focus on family violence, the decision clarifies…
Read moreRecent case: Capacity to marry
Tanti v Tanti 2021 ONCA 717: This Ontario Court of Appeal decision upheld the decision of the trial court to find a marriage between an elderly man with some dementia to a much younger woman valid. Paul Tanti and Sharon Joseph got married in 2019, when he was 89 years old. Shortly after the marriage, his…
Read moreCase update: More on courts and vaccines
This case update was written by Pamela Cross, Luke’s Place Legal Director. A few months ago, I wrote a summary of court decisions about vaccinations for children which reflected a general judicial attitude that courts should follow the government pro-vaccine attitude. Two recent cases, with very similar facts, look at this issue from the perspective…
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