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The cost of being unreasonable

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  • The cost of being unreasonable






    Father awarded $675,000 in costs for 5-year legal battle


    https://www.canlii.org/en/on/onsc/do...&resultIndex=2

  • #2
    Looks like a real "man bites dog" story.

    Comment


    • #3
      Wow, I want to read the trial decision. Here it is for anyone wondering: https://www.canlii.org/en/on/onsc/do...&resultIndex=2

      Some incredibly important points made by the judge:

      Throughout, Ms. A was represented by able counsel and repeatedly cautioned by the court – as was the father – that litigation conduct had consequences. She was ordered to pay prior costs awards for unreasonable litigation conduct in detailed reasons that set out the basis for an award of costs.

      Nonetheless, and buoyed by the financial assistance and litigation enthusiasm of her brothers, she took a “win-at-all-costs” approach to the litigation.

      At no time did Ms. A conduct herself as a litigant of limited means on the parenting issues. To the contrary, her litigation decisions were funded on a “win at all costs” basis thanks to a personal injury settlement, her equity in her home and her brothers’ determination to “do whatever it takes to keep their nephews safe.”
      Her lawyers should have also been sanctioned. I get that you have difficult clients but if you have no chance of winning and your client is being completely unreasonable, why are you continuing to represent them? It demonstrates the integrity of her counsel.

      Comment


      • #4
        It is not like the father "won" he got about 2/3rds of his cost and he is still out 300K despite the tremendous amount of bad faith AND him making a settlement offer that was better than the court order.
        It also cost him 5 years and who knows what else.
        Doesn't sound like Justice to me but it is something.

        I noted that the mother in the case won sole decision making in a Section 30 assessment, ooops, I get they got that wrong. Section 30s are terrible.
        Last edited by pinkHouses; 03-01-2022, 09:07 PM.

        Comment


        • #5

          Having read through the decision from the original case all I can say is wowzers.

          Also: Those poor babies

          This is a perfect example of I love my kids but I hate my ex more.

          Failure of so many people around those kids.

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by rockscan View Post
            Having read through the decision from the original case all I can say is wowzers.

            Also: Those poor babies

            This is a perfect example of I love my kids but I hate my ex more.

            Failure of so many people around those kids.
            Agreed, the mother truly went out of her way to damage the relationship between the kids and the other parent, which is always sad. The saddest part is that it was 5 years worth of damage when it should have been stopped sooner, and the cost of therapy for the kids well into adulthood will be substantial.

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by blinkandimgone View Post
              Agreed, the mother truly went out of her way to damage the relationship between the kids and the other parent, which is always sad. The saddest part is that it was 5 years worth of damage when it should have been stopped sooner, and the cost of therapy for the kids well into adulthood will be substantial.

              It’s also sad all the people who could have stopped it but didn’t. The judge rightly pointed out CAS failures. But her lawyers deserve a heap of punishment.

              If I heard about a kid coming at someone with a knife I would be seriously questioning the safety of the kid in the parent’s care.

              Comment


              • #8
                Do you have any idea how to find that case please?

                Comment


                • #9
                  The financial post article states that after a 5 year legal battle once the matter finally got to trial and the father had spent nearly $1million dollars in litigation fees that Justice McGee had the audacity to say that “awarding costs serves to discourage unreasonable litigation”. How the hell does awarding costs AFTER the father has already spent $1million dollars serve to discourage the mother from unreasonable litigation when she has already been unreasonable to the tune of a million dollars and the trial is concluded? Oh it may serve to discourage her from bringing the father back to court for now but the financial damage is already done.
                  If the judge thinks for one minute this decision will discourage other parties from unreasonable litigation she is delusional. It may make reasonable people think twice about protracted litigation but by their very nature, unreasonable people are…well…unreasonable plus they are selfish and would never think a ruling that applied to others would ever apply to them. The connection would never occur to them.

                  If the statistics are true and 90-95% of case settle before trial then the court should have means of identifying those horrific 5-10% of cases that don’t settle and can cause catastrophic financial, emotional or physical damage to participants and their children. Assigning a case management judge isn’t good enough! I had a case management judge assigned to our file and a homeless person having an opioid overdose would have done a better job! Plus my ex and I were on the fast track! So 10 years later our matter is still not settled. How the hell long is the slow track if we were on the fast track?

                  Why did the court allow the above matter to take 5 years and 1.7 million dollars combined of both parents money, if as Justice McGee, stated that costs awards are meant to discourage unreasonable litigation? Obviously there were no significant costs awards made earlier as unreasonable behaviour by the mother had not been effectively discouraged by the courts. Sort of like a psychiatrist letting a psychotic patient who has command hallucinations telling them to stab people, out on the streets without being treated. Then after the patient stabs people and is arrested then committing him to a psychiatric hospital and saying he is being contained and treated so he won’t act on his voices and stab people.

                  Justice McGee is completely delusional if she thinks any unreasonable litigant at all will be influenced by a costs award that happens to other people. The justice system including the judge, lawyers and various other parasitic players such as OCL or custody and access assessors sure let this family down in spectacular fashion. They had the power to prevent this calamity and didn’t. Disgusting!
                  Last edited by Stillbreathing; 04-08-2022, 09:04 PM.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Personally I think costs should be ordered every step of the way when people are unreasonable but thats just me.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      I totally agree Rockscan. Costs should be awarded every step of the way and like
                      the “Jordan principle” in criminal law, family law matters should proceed to trial within a relatively short time period once litigation is initiated, say 18 months or two years max. If a party tries to stall past this timeline it should not be allowed. Costs should be ordered against them even before trial starts for attempting to stall. Refuse to provide disclosure? So sad. Too bad. Income imputed and costs award immediately to the other side AND the matter proceeds regardless!

                      The above case is not over. The mother is supposedly not a wealthy person, so where is she going to come up with $675,000? What happens if she doesn’t pay or has assets but they are hidden and the husband can’t access them? What if she goes bankrupt? Does she get away with not paying? How is that justice? How does that deter anyone else from being unreasonable if there is a gargantuan costs order made which cannot be enforced or collected and there ends up being no real consequences to the unreasonable party? Does the mother get to walk away and say, “oops, my bad. Sorry about your having to spend a million on the litigation but I’ve got no money or assets to pay you costs so let’s just shake and I’ll take my supervised access visit with the kids?”
                      To have any meaning at all there needs to be actual consequences for unreasonable behaviour. A huge, unenforceable costs award is a joke and isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. It should be backed up by significant jail time if it’s unenforceable because the unreasonable party is broke or cannot or will not pay. There need to be unpleasant and gauranteed consequences to a litigant for unreasonable behaviour.

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                      • #12
                        I know. It’s great to have this big sticker shock in the news but are judges going to read this and say “we need to start punishing unreasonable litigants”.

                        My husband was completely up front with his ex, updated his income, provided his share of expenses etc. His ex lied about kids eligibility, insisted she was entitled to know all our finances and claimed expenses that didn’t exist. I know six years isn’t much to many people but it hung over us and it took attention away from his work, made us both anxious and impacted me when my mother died. She had to pay costs for a useless motion but she should have been punished further. We spent unnecessary money and wasted the courts time.

                        Comment

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