Visit our Website
- When do child support payments in Ontario end?
- MP plans on private member’s motion to review Canada’s Divorce Act
- Facebook Privacy Issues and Ontario Family Courts
- Judges Interviewing Children during Ontario Family Court Divorce Cases
- Ontario Court Recognizes importance of Parental Alienation in Divorce Case
Latest Blogs
- Child Adoption
- Child Custody in Ontario
- Child Support
- Child Visitation
- Cohabitation Agreements
- Collaborative Law
- Common Law Marriage
- Divorce
- Divorce Lawyer
- Family Law Changes Ontario
- Family Property Division
- Marriage Contracts
- Mediation
- Prenuptial Agreements
- Questions and Answers
- Same Sex Marriage
- Separation Agreements
- Spousal Support
- Support Orders
- Toronto Divorce Lawyers
- Toronto Family Lawyers
Categories
Archives
Related Blogs
Tag Cloud
Follow Us on Twitter
Find Us on Facebook
Ontario Court Recognizes importance of Parental Alienation in Divorce Case
A recent case heard in the Ontario Court of Appeal has placed strict punishments – the first of its kind – on a father found to be alienating his children from their mother.
In the case titled C.S. v. M.S., a 2007 decision made by the Superior Court was upheld giving the mother custody of the couple’s youngest child. The original decision also awarded the mother costs of over $320,000, a restraining order against the father for both the mother and child, as well as barring the other three children from their marriage from having access to the youngest child. These decisions were also upheld.
According to the Ontario Court of Appeal decision, there was substantial evidence that the three other children (who are now adults) were alienated from their mother and the youngest child had not yet been alienated but would eventually become a victim of Parental Alienation Syndrome (“PAS”).
PAS is essentially the “brainwashing” of a child against one parent by the other parent, and can have long-term detrimental effects on the well-being of the child and his or her relationships with the parents.
The court found that, “the father has taken aggressive and persistent steps to alienate his other children from their mother. The likelihood of this continuing with [the youngest child] if the father had access to her was virtually certain”.
Court cases are treated on a case-by-case basis and the threshold to meet the test of finding “parental alienation” is high, but this case is very different as the father has been prohibited from having access to the child from the ages of 10 to 18. According to the father’s lawyer, there is no other case in the country in which access to a child from age 10 to 18 has been terminated ever before. The lawyer also mentioned that the move of a Canadian court preventing siblings from contacting each other is very unprecedented when they are not directly involved in the application.
In this case, measures to protect the children and parents against parental alienation almost came too late, however, in the end, the court decided to enforce very strict measures due to the specific set of circumstances. In the future, with this precedent-setting case, the Ontario courts will be forced take a tougher stance against parental alienation.
Filed in Toronto Divorce Lawyers, Toronto Family Lawyers • Tags: a 2007, C.S. v. M.S., Ontario Court of Appeal, Parental Alienation Syndrome (“PAS”), Superior Court
Toronto Divorce lawyer can help avoid long, costly court battle
A new study by the former Ontario Chief of Justice has found that one-third of Ontario residents are currently fighting legal problems in civil court.
The survey also looked at the effects of these court issues on people’s health, saying that legal difficulties are disruptive to everyday life, cause immense stress and can affect work. Family and divorce law as well as child custody issues can be the most stressful, according to the report.
Even slightly more alarming, 27 per cent of those facing legal issues like family law disputes had turned to the internet for the majority of their information, while four per cent went to the police. Three per cent of the people utilized a legal aid clinic, but even the study notes that these clinics are more apt to provide assistance for those wrongfully dismissed from work or those who are applying for disability cheques, not those headed for or going through a divorce.
The internet can be a helpful resource, but no website is as knowledgeable or most importantly, as accurate as a family lawyer.
Few divorces are amicable, but not all divorces need to go through the court system in Ontario. A family lawyer can also introduce parties to the collaborative law process, which solves divorce and family law matters. This has both parties settling their problems through their divorce lawyers in an effort to agree upon and negotiate the disputed issues, without going to court. While most people want a relatively painless divorce process, avoiding long, costly divorce proceedings in court is also something very attractive to those facing divorce and custody disagreements.
This is where collaborative law and an Ontario family lawyer come in.
Filed in Toronto Divorce Lawyers, Toronto Family Lawyers • Tags: Collaborative Law, Ontario Chief of Justice
New Ontario online tool won’t replace a Qualified Family Lawyer
On Monday, May 3rd, the office of the Ontario Attorney General announced that they’ve created a new online, interactive website to assist people in filling out various family and civil law forms, as well as forms that include launching family court cases, obtaining restraining orders and changing child custody agreements.
“We’re making family courts more affordable and less complicated. This new tool simplifies the process and we are also making progress in providing the information upfront to help families make informed decisions,” Ontario’s Attorney General, Chris Bentley said in a press release.
This new website is a part of the promised reform of the Ontario family court system in an effort to make the family court system easier to use. In December, when the overhaul of the system was announced, the government also promised to improve legal advise, provide more support to families and take more steps to prevent an excess of cases from actually going to court.
On the website, a cartoon “assistant” provides information regarding the form you’re about to fill out and information on how to hide your tracks. However, as with most government websites – If you’re working on something and don’t save it within 30 minutes of being idle, it’s gone.
This new system may aid those who are computer savvy, but not everyone involved in family court cases. The selection of forms on the site for family law purposes are also very limited. The site itself is even careful to warn, “a lawyer is in the best position to advise you on your rights and responsibilities in this situation”.
And if any error is made on your form, even accidentally, it may be rejected. A family lawyer is indeed in the best position to advise you on your rights and responsibilities, along with ensuring that the form is accurately and completely filled out.
Filed in Toronto Divorce Lawyers, Toronto Family Lawyers •
Why hire a Toronto family lawyer to do your Prenuptial agreement?
Last week, the issues resulting from the breakup of two common-law relationships found themselves in front of the Supreme Court of Canada after not being able to decide how to divide their assets.
In the first case, the pair split after a 26-year common law relationship. Initially, the common-law wife transferred her home and car to her common-law husband, who then paid them off. The common-law wife suffered a stroke well into their relationship and ended up in an extended care facility while the common-law husband ended up with far more in assets than she had by the time they broke up. She brought action against him claiming spousal support and a division of property on the basis of unjust enrichment – where one spouse gains a valuable advantage over the other. Originally, the Court of Appeal determined that she was not eligible for spousal support.
“The Court of Appeal has lost sight of the fact that he’s better off than she is,” her lawyer argued at the trial.
The second case is an Ontario case where a common-law couple broke up after the common-law husband made millions of dollars when his company was bought out. A trial judge awarded the common law wife a settlement of $1.2 million, as she had stayed home and raised the children so he could spend more time focusing on his business. The court of appeal denied her the award and they are now at the Supreme Court to determine the real value of her sacrifices over the years they were together.
The decisions of both cases are reserved, which means it could take months for the court to actually hand out a ruling.
Common law relationships share the same problems as any other relationship and just because a marriage is not involved doesn’t mean that a breakup is any less messy. A prenuptial agreement and a qualified family lawyer can help make the process much easier.
Filed in Toronto Divorce Lawyers, Toronto Family Lawyers • Tags: Common Law, Common Law Separation, family law cases, supreme court of canada cases, toronto family law
Easing the Pain of Divorce and Separation: Halifax “Divorce Fair” the first of its kind
Life After Divorce and Separation
Canada’s first-ever divorce fair opened for a two-day event this past weekend in Halifax. The organizer, Maria Franks, said she got the idea when she saw news reports about thousands of people attending a similar type of event taking place in Paris, but decided to add something unique: “his and hers” dates, one day each for men and women only
One of the biggest goals of the fair was emphasizing finding a new life after divorce.
“We’re not promoting divorce, we’re just saying this is the reality,” Franks said, “it’s stressful and it’s sad … but once it’s over, it can be the beginning of a new and better life.”
Options for Divorce
Reality, indeed. New survey data reported last year showed that half of marriages don’t end in divorce like previously thought, but the number is still quite high: almost 40 per cent of Canadian marriages end in divorce – events like this might just become more common in the future.
Many of the vendors also wanted to inform people of the many options that are available to them when going through divorce, aside from a costly court battle. In fact, the vendors at the fair aimed to offer advice on a number of divorce and separation-related topics that end up causing arguments and make the process more difficult than it has to be, including selling a home after a divorce, easing stress, childcare, financial issues and getaway vacations to refresh body and mind.
Vendors and booths at the fair included real estate companies, travel agencies, lawyers, financial service agencies and hair and makeup artists – divorce doesn’t have to be ugly.
Call us for a Consultation for Divorce and Separation at our Toronto Law Office
Informing yourself about the divorce and separation process if you’re facing a pending divorce can help you adequately prepare for what’s to come. Call Niren and Associates Family Law Practice at 416 222 4555 or e-mail info@divorcesupport.ca for a confidential consultation.
Filed in Divorce, Divorce Lawyer, Toronto Divorce Lawyers • Tags: Divorce Fair
“Soprano” Legal Tactic for limiting Divorce Lawyers Spurned by Judge
On an episode of the popular HBO series the “Sopranos”, mob boss Tony Soprano contacted a number of high-profile New Jersey divorce lawyers in an effort to restrict the ever-dwindling pool of lawyers his soon-to-be ex-wife could choose to hire for representation in their pending divorce. Tony’s lawyer advised him that if he did so many lawyers would choose not to represent Tony’s wife because of the conflict of interest a conversation with her soon-to-be ex-husband would create.
Rachelle Tauber, a divorce litigant of Toronto, attempted something similar and Justice Judge Ellen Macdonald of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruled against Ms. Tauber’s request to have a lawyer with whom she held a seven-minute telephone conversation with months earlier removed as her husband’s legal counsel.
Ms. Tauber maintained that she revealed confidential information during the call, but the lawyer in question said that was not the case.
When Ms.Tauber discovered her husband, Jeffrey Tauber, had hired the same lawyer with whom she had the telephone conversation, she requested the court remove him as counsel. Judge Macdonald denied this request, ruling that “There is a concern that there is an element of strategy and tactics underlying this motion.” It is also interesting to note that the lawyer in question also represented Mr. Tauber during his first two divorces, one of which was high-profile, as well as Ms. Tauber’s first ex-husband.
Judge Macdonald maintained that if the “Soprano” tactic were to be allowed, spouses could easily ruin the other spouse’s chance of obtaining quality legal representation in their divorce.
The question of how much discussion can take place while “shopping around” for a divorce lawyer before he or she is retained as your lawyer is not well defined, which Judge Macdonald in the Tauber case held, “Raises important issues for the legal profession.”
When searching for a family lawyer with whom you feel comfortable to represent you in a divorce, ensure that the information disclosed during the consultation will remain confidential whether or not you decide to formally retain the lawyer.
If you are involved in or are facing a pending divorce, call Niren and Associates Family Law Practice at 416 222 4555 or e-mail info@divorcesupport.ca for a confidential consultation.
Filed in Divorce, Divorce Lawyer, Toronto Divorce Lawyers •