Hi everyone,
So my case is slowly progressing. The ex hired a lawyer, and he has been playing fast and loose. Only providing the trial record documents two days before trial, not providing documents requested by the court, and myself between court dates repeatedly.
We had court the past Friday and he set me up pretty big, argued that I only had my child 30% of the time based on hours, instead of 44% I do have him based on over nights. They also asked for reduced access for me during the week. Judge refused my request for adjournment based on evidence not being submitted, and sent us off to discuss. We chatted, and the lawyer said he calculated based on hours I had the child divided by hours in a month. I asked about time in daycare/school, and he said that courts predominantly award that to the parent the child is with on a higher percentage. I literally laughed in his face, and asked how any parent could ever hit 40% if that was the case, so he went on to brag about how one of the cases he worked, the opposing father actually had the kid 60% and had to pay full support because of hours vs days.
We agreed we were getting no where, and he suggested we have the judge rule JUST on the 40%. If we hit 40% we would impute my ex's previous wage and he did not want to talk about any of the other income she has. So I agreed to let the judge decide. We get in there, and the judge was skeptical about just ruling on 40%. He warned me that there was no rule that stated copay was going to necessarily happen, and asked my ex's lawyer how he could rule on the 40% if they were asking to change access anyways. The lawyer said.. if you rule with us on the 40% we are fine leaving the schedule as is. HA.. I turned around and smiled at my dad behind me because this tells you exactly what they wanted, and the judge caught me and smirked. oops. So the judge agreed to rule on this, and then my ex's lawyer drops Evan v. Gravely (2000), Robblee v. Reid,(2003) and Gore-hickman vs Gore-hickman (1999) on my and the judges desk. Joy. LUCKILY I pulled one out of my arse and argued that the courts had never determined who the primary care giver was in an previous motion, and that the applicants argument that my son's mother was the primary care giver due to "her name being first on the emergency contact list" at daycare/school was ridiculous as I had been equally involved in making these decisions and unfortunately there is only 1 space for first contact. The judge agreed with me and ruled I had met the 40% threshold. So when he came back, he suggested the lawyer and I step off together and discuss support.
My offer was full offset based on her previous wage, and that if she accepted I would not put in a claim on any child tax benefits, baby bonus etc which is $500 month for her. They laughed at the offer, and claimed they never offered her previous wage to be used in the calculation (my dad was in the room with me, and I specifically acted "stupid" when her lawyer was first offering the previous wage so that he would clarify exactly what he meant.. so the bugger was back tracking/lieing) The lawyer told me that the judge already suggested he would award support with no copay and they would go to trial. Now the Judge only warned this was a possibility.. not that it would happen.
So I have court again in just over a month... the only real thing to settle is support now, as I'm pretty sure the judge just ruled I have shared custody by agreeing to the 40%. Best news in a long time.
I have drygali vs pauli for imputed income, but I have no case law briefs that show full offset support copay as the "norm" and I think I need to get this ready for next time. Are there any "standard" case law briefs that judges should be very familiar with that I can take with me? I checked out CanLii for cases but I would assume ones that are regularly used would be better as the Judge will already have seen them on multiple occasions.
Not sure I'd gotten this far without this forum!
So my case is slowly progressing. The ex hired a lawyer, and he has been playing fast and loose. Only providing the trial record documents two days before trial, not providing documents requested by the court, and myself between court dates repeatedly.
We had court the past Friday and he set me up pretty big, argued that I only had my child 30% of the time based on hours, instead of 44% I do have him based on over nights. They also asked for reduced access for me during the week. Judge refused my request for adjournment based on evidence not being submitted, and sent us off to discuss. We chatted, and the lawyer said he calculated based on hours I had the child divided by hours in a month. I asked about time in daycare/school, and he said that courts predominantly award that to the parent the child is with on a higher percentage. I literally laughed in his face, and asked how any parent could ever hit 40% if that was the case, so he went on to brag about how one of the cases he worked, the opposing father actually had the kid 60% and had to pay full support because of hours vs days.
We agreed we were getting no where, and he suggested we have the judge rule JUST on the 40%. If we hit 40% we would impute my ex's previous wage and he did not want to talk about any of the other income she has. So I agreed to let the judge decide. We get in there, and the judge was skeptical about just ruling on 40%. He warned me that there was no rule that stated copay was going to necessarily happen, and asked my ex's lawyer how he could rule on the 40% if they were asking to change access anyways. The lawyer said.. if you rule with us on the 40% we are fine leaving the schedule as is. HA.. I turned around and smiled at my dad behind me because this tells you exactly what they wanted, and the judge caught me and smirked. oops. So the judge agreed to rule on this, and then my ex's lawyer drops Evan v. Gravely (2000), Robblee v. Reid,(2003) and Gore-hickman vs Gore-hickman (1999) on my and the judges desk. Joy. LUCKILY I pulled one out of my arse and argued that the courts had never determined who the primary care giver was in an previous motion, and that the applicants argument that my son's mother was the primary care giver due to "her name being first on the emergency contact list" at daycare/school was ridiculous as I had been equally involved in making these decisions and unfortunately there is only 1 space for first contact. The judge agreed with me and ruled I had met the 40% threshold. So when he came back, he suggested the lawyer and I step off together and discuss support.
My offer was full offset based on her previous wage, and that if she accepted I would not put in a claim on any child tax benefits, baby bonus etc which is $500 month for her. They laughed at the offer, and claimed they never offered her previous wage to be used in the calculation (my dad was in the room with me, and I specifically acted "stupid" when her lawyer was first offering the previous wage so that he would clarify exactly what he meant.. so the bugger was back tracking/lieing) The lawyer told me that the judge already suggested he would award support with no copay and they would go to trial. Now the Judge only warned this was a possibility.. not that it would happen.
So I have court again in just over a month... the only real thing to settle is support now, as I'm pretty sure the judge just ruled I have shared custody by agreeing to the 40%. Best news in a long time.
I have drygali vs pauli for imputed income, but I have no case law briefs that show full offset support copay as the "norm" and I think I need to get this ready for next time. Are there any "standard" case law briefs that judges should be very familiar with that I can take with me? I checked out CanLii for cases but I would assume ones that are regularly used would be better as the Judge will already have seen them on multiple occasions.
Not sure I'd gotten this far without this forum!
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